


The Revenge of Water.

by Shock_Cooling



Category: Stargate - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 40,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21726310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shock_Cooling/pseuds/Shock_Cooling
Summary: Ganos Lal, aka Morgan le Fey and the rest of the Ascended Ancients screwed up big time.Following her defeat of Adria, Morgan has an unexpected run in with her poor long suffering cousin Oma Desala. After helping Oma finally defeat Anubis. Morgan is displaced in time to the moment just before Oma met Anubis, seemingly for the purpose of preventing his ascension.After Morgan kills Anubis for a second time reality itself rearranges around this moment and Morgan has to do something that she might not ever forgive herself for in order to prevent history from repeating itself.She may not be able to forgive, but she will be forced to forget as a new US Military Stargate program emerges under Navy instead of Air Force command. Led by Hyman Rickover and an unexpected, very technologically advanced ally.
Kudos: 1





	1. Washing up on the shores of the Lethe

"Half the teams going through that mountain should have been long tabbers." Some Random SG1 Fan.

"If you immediately know the candle light is fire then the meal was cooked a long time ago."

Oma Desala yawned and opened her eyes as she heard a familiar voice saying what had become her catchphrase. 

She was in a hospital bed. Her cousin was standing next to her. 

"If you immediately know the candle light is fire then the meal was cooked a long time ago. Do you have... Any idea what that means?" 

"No. Morgan, for, what..? Where are we and what are we doing here?" 

"What's the last thing you remember?" Asked Morgan la Fay. 

"The last thing I remember? Talking to Daniel and Anubis at the diner. What happened?" Replied Oma. 

"Anything else?" 

Her memories were fragmented and scattered. She barely remembered anything from when she was ascended. She couldn't believe how surreal and cartoonish those memories looked. 

"Anubis... I remember him now, I fought Anubis. Crossed swords, fists and feet, energy beams, energy fields, chess matches, slapping contests, stick fighting. Underwater, overland, in the air. Every form of conflict in the galaxy from single celled organisms bumping together to weapons that could kill a star. The longer I fought him the more corporeal he became. At some point I think I shoved an electric toothbrush in his mouth? I fought him across the Milky Way until..." 

A memory flickered into sight. 

"I hurt him! I was finally able to hurt him... with that fucking toothbrush?!... How did I hurt him with a toothbrush? When he realized I had hurt him Anubis made for the super gate. He shouted back to me that he was going to use the super gate to dial all the way to the end of the gate system, Destiny. That he was going to hide there until he was powerful enough to defeat me and every other ascended being in existence. Before he could dial, a ship came through the gate." 

The memory became more solid. She saw herself in a fistfight with Anubis aboard an Earthling ship. 

"That's the last thing I remember. My hands around his throat. What happened to him?" 

"Anubis is dead. Actually, truly and permanently dead." Morgan replied. 

"Permanently... How?" 

"SG1 My dear cousin, Star-gate team number one. Your raggedy little human friends saved our butts yet again. While you were fighting it out with Anubis they wiped out the Ori." 

"Wiped out the... How?" 

"Well, I had to give them a lot of help. So much help that I am going to have to pay one hell of a price. As soon as we are done talking here I'm probably going to turn into a vegetable. Remember? You did it to Jackson once, I took care of it the second time around." 

Oma looked at her hands. 

"I can barely remember anything but Anubis. And most of what I can remember is... SG1... Great, so you mind wiped me and turned me into a human like I did to Jackson, right?" 

"Let me try to fill you in on the key details. After you engaged Anubis in your duel for the rest of eternity SG1 started fiddling around with an old communication device and..." 

"Oh no." 

"Oh yes." 

"No they... They betrayed us to the Ori?" 

"It wasn't entirely their fault. Their hands may have been... Guided." 

"We declared war on Origin, through SG1?!" Asked a horrified Oma.

Morgan la Fay rubbed the back of her head anxiously. "What you did with them must have impressed the others. Impressed one of them enough to invade the dreams of that lunatic Mal Doran. She tricked SG1 into finding the communication device." 

"No, no they wouldn't have done that. SG1 isn't that stupid. There are failsafes." Replied Oma. 

"There were, and they held by the slimmest possible of margins. Then they started failing. We had to leak vital information to SG1. After this Origin... Made a meat puppet version of itself to defeat the earthlings. Enough information was leaked for SG1 to build Merlin's Weapon." 

"You fucking hypocrites! After all this time that's what you do!" Exclaimed Oma Desala. 

"Oh my dear cousin, it gets so much worse than that. We didn't just teach them how to build Merlin's weapon. I gave them Merlin. Surprise! I didn't kill him I just put him on ice." 

"Wow, so... I take it the weapon worked?" 

"Well... Yes and no. Origin was exterminated. But you will remember that Merlin's weapon targeted ascended beings. Not their followers and even more unfortunately not their meat puppet. The meat puppet inherited all their energy." 

"And then what!?!" 

"Well, and here's where things get really dicy. We... Kinda... Sorta..." 

"Morgan, what, did, you, do!?!" 

"I... Gave them the Ark of Truth." 

"So that's it? After countless millennia? After years of Ori tyranny upon our ancestors? We developed the weapon that would have ended the war forever. We chickened out, ran away and lived in peace for a thousand centuries? After all that time. All that technology, all that history, all those Astria Porta? Our answer is the same damn weapon we abandoned in the first place?" 

"Yeah, well, that's not even the fun part." 

"The fun part?" 

"Well, the Ark of Truth shows the truth of ascension to whoever looks inside. In the moment the Doci was shown the truth all the power their system was harvesting switched from the Ori to me. It tapered off fairly quickly but it was enough to give me a massive power boost over the sole remaining Ori." 

"So... The Ori are gone?" 

"The Ori are gone! Completely and utterly gone! Once I beat the last Ori I stowed away on SG1s ship back to the Milky Way. You have some familiarity with it. The USS Odyssey. But as soon as we came through the super gate I see you and Anubis having a massive fistfight in the cargo hold I was hiding in. So, I blasted Anubis the same way I blasted Adria. You briefly took on a corporeal form and passed out from exhaustion. The moment I touched you reality began rearranging itself. I think killing Anubis might have unwound some kind of insane paradoxes in both of our existences because after what seemed like forty years of insane hallucinations we both fall back into reality in a park not far from here. This is a hospital on a planet called Aemon. You're not going to believe this, we have gone back in time to just before the beginning of SG1. There's just one little issue." 

Morgan la Fay invited Oma Desala to the window. 

Oma looked outside. 

The city below bustled with activity. But everyone there was...

"Why? How are we on a planet of women if this is supposed to be the beginning of SG1?" Asked Oma. 

"Do you remember that mission they went on where they gated around the sun and..." 

"Traveled back in time by accident, yeah." 

"Well, this is the planet that they were supposed to gate to before they got sent back. We landed here the day they were supposed to. In 1969." 

"1969... That..." More memories flashed through Oma's mind. Something that she knew didn't happen. She saw herself looking at Anubis. The day he came to Kheb. He had seemed so happy, so honest. 

"You... You killed Anubis? Yesterday?" Asked Oma.

"If you immediately know the candle light is fire then the meal was cooked a long time ago. Why did you say that?" Asked Morgan. 

"I told you I don't remember!" 

"In Earth's history I'm remembered as a great sorceress. But if anyone is a sorceress here I think it's you. I think you cast a spell, Oma. A spell to help us undo the mistakes we both made. Anubis is gone. In this reality you didn't help him ascend because I was able to kill him as he showed up at Kheb. Now we have an opportunity here to assemble a force that can beat the Ori before they are aware of our presence in the universe." 

"I thought you and SG1 destroyed already the Ori?" 

"Not in this reality, I think... Either way we're here at a critical point in time. A completely different SG1 team is about to form in this reality. SG1 seems to function best when it has at least one alien team member. A slot is going to be open pretty soon. If you want to throw your hat in the ring" 

"Yeah it's all I ever wanted since I got to know Doctor Jackson. But wait, if it's 1969 won't he be...?"

"Yeah, five years old, or so... I think." 

"Great, just great. That won't be creepy at all, wait! The Air Force wasn't running missions through the gate in 1969." 

"No, they weren't were they? So this Stargate program is going to have to be under someone else's command. I suspect that it's going to be the Navy." 

"The navy?"

"The United States Navy." 

"Wow, how did you get them to... Morgan... Morgan, what did you do? You don't make that expression unless you have done something awful." 

"Come on cuz! I cleaned up your Anubis mess, doesn't that count for something?" 

"I'm not going to be able to join SG1 if I'm working with a criminal!" Replied Oma. 

"Listen, I know you liked him. But... I... After the information in the Ark of Truth was fully disseminated I began losing power, knowledge and memories. I could feel them frittering away from me the moment we landed on this planet. You know that old saw, what's the worth of a single life? A single life balanced against what? The entire universe? All of creation? A few galaxies? A rusted and broken old starship? A million Zuleks? It's relative! It's always relative! But..." 

"Ganos... What did you do!?!" 

Morgan la Fay felt faint. 

"I'm not going to be able to keep this up much longer. I'm about to pass out and when I wake up, if I wake up. I'm probably not even going to be able to remember my own name. You need to remember for me, at least for a little while longer. The Earthlings need to be warned. You know the candle light is fire. The Ori. Then the meal, the mortals, was cooked a long time ago. We are at the last point in time where we can stop the meal from being cooked. Once things went past this point then there was no chance that Stargate command and their allies could keep Origin out of the Milky Way. I had to get the earthlings into the game sooner than they did in the other timeline. I had to do some major bending of the rules of reality itself and I still have one last favor that I'm not sure will pay off. If it does, just remember, "look into the eyes of the skull."

Morgan handed Oma a note with four gate addresses on it. Oma only recognized one, Earth's gate address. The other three were marked with symbols. A skull, a crater and a double headed salamander. 

"The Navy will be here soon. You know the rules as well as I do. Direct intervention by ascended beings is prohibited to the lower planes. But there are exceptions and work arounds. The Ori proved themselves much better at working those exceptions than we were. So when reality reassembled itself into this I had to get the Earthlings attention. They had to activate the gate sooner rather than later and in order to do that without actually showing up on Earth and explaining everything to them the way I just explained it to you..." Morgan could sense it, she was about to fall into a coma. "I... I kinda, sorta, had to... Create circumstances that led to the death of Jack O'Neill."


	2. Disclosure and explosions.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This story is going to be told in a shorthand form. But just for fun, we're going to jump around in time just a little bit.

July 15 1976

"My fellow Ameri... my fellow humans. The American people have spoken loudly and clearly over the past few months and its time that I spoke back. We are all aware of the seemingly endless torrent of information concerning corruption in virtually every government on earth. Tonight I hope to be able to explain the cause and effects of all this and provide the answers that we will all need to move forward together. Exterminating corruption wherever it may have taken root. In order to explain the origin of this information I shall now inform you of... Look. Most of this is going to sound completely insane and parts of this are going to make no sense. Those are just the breaks. So..."

"On April second 1945 the United States Army Air Corps successfully activated a piece of alien technology called a Stargate. Moments after activating the device a man named Ernest Littlefield was sent through this gate to another world which we call now call Heliopolis. As a result of cabinet reshuffling that occurred following the death of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the general conditions following the end of World War Two. The Stargate was effectively forgotten until it was activated by a group of four intruders in 1969. These intruders have been identified as members of a time traveling team of Air Force personnel. Yes you heard me right. Both alien technology and time travel exist. But that's just the beginning."

* * *

"So this is going to be the official story?"

"Your version of it at least. We wanted to be sure that we have testimonials from everyone involved. So, Commander Rostrum. Please, let us know how you got involved in all this. And please be as honest as possible."

"Alright, that's... That was the thing about the Stargate. The first rule for doing business, the way we ran the program. Honesty really turns out to be the best policy. Helps you keep things straight in your head you know. Especially when the evidence at hand made no damn sense. So there's... A lot of places that this could start. Technically all this started at some point way off in a future that probably can't happen anymore. The best place for me to start would be when I first heard about the Stargate. That would be the evening of September sixth, 1969."

"At that time I was living in Washington, D.C. With my wife at the time, Soon Ming. I was a lieutenant working at Navsea 08. It was a... Frustrating job to put it charitably, if you really do want me to be honest? During an investigation into a suspected spy ring in 1967 I met and became friends with an NCIS agent. Richard Honecker. After the investigation and the spy ring were wrapped up Honecker and I stayed in touch. It turned out our houses were on the same street. The evening of September 6 I was playing poker with him and two other friends who lived in the neighborhood. A civilian who I would rather not name to protect his privacy and an Air Force major, Gregory Charlotte."

"As the night wound down my civilian friend wound up getting so drunk that he couldn't make it back to his house. The Major took him home, my wife was sleeping upstairs. After I grumbled to him about losing $300 to him that night Agent Honecker and I started talking about some rather curious things."

"I suppose I knew that it was something serious after he requested to sweep my house for listening devices before we talked. Once he had done so we sat down and he began with a variation of the old, 'this stays between us' proviso."

"Seriously Erwin, this is... Beyond secure compartmentalized information. This information cannot get out."

"Easy Dick, it's not like you haven't vetted the crap out of me. If I was working for the Russians you would know by now."

"In all honesty it's not the Russians I'm worried about. If they had this information I don't think that there's anything they could do with it or about it. It's the Air Force I'm worried about. There's something going on involving two secure Air Force facilities there that I just can't make heads or tails of."

"So... I shouldn't have invited Greg here tonight?"

"Actually I'm glad you did. He is involved in this. He works at one of the facilities in question and I wanted to get a measure of what kind of a person he was before this investigation went any further."

"Ooookay, so how about you fill me in on the details?"

Agent Honecker reached down to a briefcase.

He started laying out photos and documents on the table like he was playing solitaire.

"On August 4th of this year four intruders were arrested at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado. The intruders appeared to be members of a nonexistent USAF special operations team called SG-1. Not only did they escape custody but they somehow managed to destroy almost all evidence of their intrusion. Their equipment, their weapons. All gone. However, before they escaped photos were taken of the intruders, their equipment and weapons."

"This... Is an MP5 variant that doesn't exist. The serial number doesn't match up with any of Heckler und Koch's manufacturing records. It also has various improvements that do not exist on any currently available MP5 variant. Even more concerning is their other weapons..."

"This staff thing appears to be some kind of a plasma weapon."

"This scorpion-dick looking item is yet another weapon of a completely unknown type. And here we have the real topper. The thing that makes absolutely no goddamn sense."

Honecker laid out four more photos. Of sets of USAF issue dog tags.

"This one, Teal'c. His SSN doesn't exist. But these other three, O'Neill, Jackson and Carter? There are three American citizens who have social security numbers and names matching up to these names and numbers. There's just one little problem..."

Honecker laid out a lovely photo of a baby sleeping in her mother's arms in a park.

"Samantha Carter is the daughter of a USAF officer. So at least we have something that makes a tiny bit of sense there. But... she is two years old. Jackson is six years old and O'Neill..."

"Honecker had found current photos of all these kids. But what does he do with the last one? He slams a newspaper article about how one Jonathan Jack O'Neill had been killed in a car accident three days ago."

"As far as I can tell the death of O'Neill was an accident. Some sixty year old woman had a stroke, stomped on the gas when she should have stomped on the brake and turned this poor kid into pudding. But, well. I just wanted you to know about that before we go ahead. Anyway... The intruders seem to have made it cross country to a secure warehouse where a device was stored that they used to vanish off the face of the earth."

Agent Honecker pulled out a picture of a standing stone circle with what appeared to be a shimmering pool of water suspended inside it.

"What the intruders were not aware of is that this warehouse was the site of an ongoing investigation that I was heading up. The warehouse is an Air Force facility but navy property had gone missing. Among the various items stored there were destroyed pieces of classified navy technology. Some of it had going missing before it could be recycled. We hid cameras rigged with motion sensors waiting for the thieves to show up but before they showed up the intruders did. The intruders daisy chained a bunch of trucks together to power this stone circle and... Dialed an address into it on the smaller ring inside the circle. Jumped in and vanished. So... what do you think this thing is? Some kind of time machine?"

"You say they dialed something into this thing. Do you know what they dialed?"

"Yeah..."

Honecker pulled out a document.

"These are the glyphs they entered into the ring. Do they make any sense to you?"

"These look like graphic representations of constellations. Seven glyphs. Hm, was there anything else, anything at all?"

"Oh dang, I almost forgot this."

He pulled out a picture of a note.

"This note. It contained two dates and times and the words, 'help them.' I've looked everywhere on Earth for anything that was happening at those times and come up with nothing."

"Well what about things off of earth?"

"What do you mean?"

The lieutenant looked over the spread of photos and documents.

"From what I'm seeing this thing doesn't look like a time machine. It sounds like a device for sending objects and people to someplace out there in the universe. If these are constellations then they probably denote a fixed point in space."

The lieutenant thought for a moment.

"How's the Air Force handling this?"

"Well... Even if the unfortunate demise of the young Mister O'Neill isn't something that can be blamed on the Air Force. And from what I can see it was just a terrible accident. Either way... There seems to be an awful high casualty rate among the personnel at Cheyenne Mountain who handled the intruders. There's one man in particular that I can feel the sword of Damocles dangling over. And this... This is the real reason why I brought you in. I need a favor from someone, probably several someone's with SERIOUS juice! Someone like your boss. And his friends."

Agent Honecker leaned back and sighed.

He plugged the phone wire back in.

"I know it's late Erwin. But we have some phone calls to make."

"Jake! Jacob Carter!"

"Yeah what!? George? What's going..?"

Kaboom!

"It's the Navy, Jake! The navy is coming to rescue us! There's a carrier battle group coming down arou..."

Kaboom! Kaboom! Boom!!! Shriek! Hummmmmmmmmmmmmm!

KABOOM!!!


	3. Under arrest.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The assemblage of the parts needed for a Stargate program.

General Brereton looked out on the city of Washington DC. He really didn't like coming here. He much preferred his comfortable billet in Belgium. But he supposed that the time was fast approaching that he would have to retire. 

Before he did so there were a few things that had to be... Attended to first. There had been a security breach involving a certain annoying device and he was the last active duty officer who had actually been there the last time they turned it on. 

At least he had hoped it had been the last time. 

The enormous stone ring had been an endless source of headaches for the Air Force. How many files had been lost. How many rolls of film burnt. How many...

There was a knock at the door. 

General Brereton walked away from the window of his hotel room and looked through the loophole of the room door. 

There was a face on the other side that he had never seen in person but recognized. 

The general threw the door open and balled a fist as he growled. "Rickover!? What? How did you? You're... What are you doing here?" 

Brereton looked to his left. 

Next to Rickover was an older man who just about screamed federal agent. If his appearance wasn't enough then the 357 magnum revolver and prominently displayed badge completed the image. 

"Why don't you have a seat General Brereton? Unless you want this guy to break your thumbs." Rickover stated. 

The general backed up into the hotel room and sat down. The federal agent waited outside the room while Rickover began outlining the situation. 

"Your cover up was pretty good. But you made two critical mistakes and possibly one unspeakable crime. One, you thought that no one outside the Air Force would notice." 

Three photos of the inside of the secure warehouse as the intruders were turning on the Stargate. 

"We have the address they dialed just so you know. We sent a probe. The people who live on that planet are very friendly, incredibly technologically advanced and very... Symmetrical to us. It's really a shame that you won't get a chance to talk to them." 

"Ahem. Two, all the evidence taken off the Cheyenne Mountain intruders was destroyed except... Photos of them and their equipment, including their USAF issue dog tags. In whatever timeline, in whatever universe they came from they used social security numbers as their unique ID numbers. These numbers match up to three individuals. You have been having trouble finding the child that has Doctor Daniel Jacksons social security number, haven't you? There's a reason for that. Because I had him and his family disappear. And it seems that they are damn good at it." 

"And three, well." 

Rickover slid another photo out of the envelope. 

"I'm a very mean man, everyone tells me that. 500 idiots can be wrong but the people I deal with? The world I live in? Five hundred of them all saying that I'm one of the meanest people they have ever seen? Not only are they right, I take pride in that! But even I never gave the order to assassinate an American... Child."

General Brereton looked down at the photo of the boy who would have become Colonel Jonathan A 'Jack' O'Neill wrapped around the front bumper of a truck. 

"So, why did you do it? Why the cover up? Why did you send two men and a boy to their deaths?" 

Brereton looked at the article and said. "I had nothing to do with the death of O'Neill, you hear me? Nothing! As for Hammond... he shouldn't have concealed evidence. He would have got what he had coming to him. He helped covered for the intruders! I mean nothing about this makes any sense until I realized..." 

Rickover tapped part of the picture with Bereton's face. 

"That's what you do, you cover up deaths. And this is where you started. The death of Ernest Littlefield. Only, it turns out... He... Didn't, die!" 

Yet another photo. 

A grainy black and white image of the constellation Canis Minor within a glowing chevron. 

"You got the wrong address. The gate was sealed with a cartouche on top of it with an address. You halted dialing at this coordinate, not the one that was actually on the cartouche. Now that the Stargate is in my hands, not yours we went through your old files and fired it up. We have now traveled to three gate addresses. The ones the intruders dialed, the actual cartouche address and the one you accidentally put in led to a very, very interesting... Place." 

One last photo. 

A group photo of ten people from various worlds and time periods standing in front of a Stargate. General Brereton recognized many of them. From left to right. A woman he didn't recognize, a man in a us navy lieutenant commanders uniform with the nameplate Rostrum. Catherine Langford, Ernest Littlefield, admiral Rickover. Next to Rickover a large woman in a military uniform that he didn't recognize but her name tag said Voss. A chief petty officer named Ewing and finally, A pair of Air Force officers. Captain Hammond and lieutenant Carter. 

Brereton stared at the picture in his hands. 

He blinked. 

He dimly realized what had been unleashed upon the universe. 

He blinked again. 

There appeared to be two admiral Rickover's in the picture but one of them had long hair and was very obviously a woman. 

"What Littlefield found might be the most important thing that mankind has ever found. We also found a planet called Aemonia, this where my... Mirror there came from. Thanks to these women we know that there's a sky full of hostile aliens out there. But we also found a lot of friendly ones." 

Rickover leaned in close and whispered something as he took the picture back. 

"And they are all my friends now, not yours." 

"Following the shoot down of both their aircraft Lieutenant George Hammond threw himself on top of lieutenant Jacob Carter as he desperately tried to unbuckle his friend from the harness that kept him trapped in the burning wreckage of his plane. For this heroism, Captain George Hammond shall be awarded the Navy Cross and lieutenant Jacob Carter shall be awarded the silver star." 

The two young officers beamed with pride as the admiral pinned the awards on both of them. 

"Sorry about all the shrapnel, but we all know that those kinds of weapons aren't exactly what you would call precision instruments." Admiral Rickover said. 

"Just glad your men were there when it counted, admiral!" Replied Hammond. 

"Yeah we really can't thank you enough. But... Why did you have us brought all the way to Idaho? We haven't been able to talk to anyone in our families or the Air Force since we were rescued. This all seems a bit... Weird." Observed Carter. 

"Weird? Yeah and it only gets weirder. I want to offer you two a job. You would still be Air Force officers at your current pay grades but it would mean a stateside assignment with an awful lot of perks. It will be difficult, dangerous, messy, confusing and probably incredibly violent. And I would have to demand your complete loyalty to me, not the Air Force." 

"You want us? At naval reactors? We don't know anything about nuclear... Anything! we're pilots." Replied Captain Hammond. 

"Not to mention dangerous confusing and incredibly violent sounds like something that shouldn't involve nuclear reactors." Added Carter. 

"Well, I don't want you at NAVSEA08. You would be working for me on a... Side project." 

"What, some kind of nuclear secret squirrel stuff?" Asked Hammond. 

"I suppose you could call it that. But this offer will be contingent on Captain Hammond here explaining the fine details of what he really did with a group of four intruders at the Cheyenne Mountain complex on August 9 1969." 

George Hammond stiffed up. 

Jacob turned to George and asked. "What's this about?" 

Rickover took a photo out of a pocket. 

It was of a pair of dog tags with a name and social security number of someone very familiar to lieutenant Carter. 

Lieutenant Carters eyes twitched as he snapped out. 

"What the hell is this? Some kind of a joke I don't get?" My daughter isn't even a year old! Why would someone make her a pair of dog tags?" 

Rickover took out another photo. A mugshot of the alleged Captain Samantha Carter. Her uniform had identification patches that lieutenant Carter was sure did not match up to anything in the current USAF. 

"This intruder was wearing those tags. Her uniform, equipment and general demeanor suggested that she was a member of a US Air Force special operations team called SG-1. SG seems to refer to a Stargate. A piece of alien technology that can transport people and equipment to other planets. The Air Force opened the gate once before. In 1945. They sent a man named Littlefield through. He has been stranded on a planet he calls Heliopolis ever since." 

"What your friend doesn't know but is beginning to suspect is that the both of you were sent into the teeth of the heaviest air defenses in that theatre to get rid of one, or preferably both of you. Because you don't just know too much. You are too much. If anyone without a secure compartmentalized, beyond top secret clearance became aware of time traveling Air Force officers or the air forces legacy of massive fuckups with the gate. Then, well. You and a whole bunch of other people could be at tremendous risk. Especially you, Hammond. What with the fact that you actually met these alleged officers. Now, I can protect you. But only if you tell me the truth about what really happened that day, in August 1969 at Cheyenne Mountain, Captain!"

George Hammond finished telling his part of the story. Rickover concluding. 

"Solar flares, eh? Well that does match up to the evidence we have found, so, I imagine you might want to know the jobs you two will be doing for me here at the Idaho National Labs?" 

"Yeah, sure." Jacob Carter replied in a mildly distracted tone as he continued to study the photo of some future version of his daughter. 

"After Hammond here got shorted out by the intruders they made it cross country where they found this Stargate in a secure warehouse. The warehouse was Air Force property. But, it was the site of an ongoing investigation involving missing navy property. Certain... Wreckage once belong to classified weapons systems stored at the warehouse had going missing so cameras tripped to motion sensors were installed through the warehouse by NIS. Those cameras captured the intruders powering up and dialing the Stargate." 

Rickover showed them a document with an address in glyphs printed on it. 

"However their lead investigator wasn't able to figure out what was going on until they brought in one of my people in to consult. As a result of this investigation the Stargate was transferred to the navy. 

Rickover looked at Carter. 

He had an absurdly goofy look on his face as he looked up from the pictures that Rickover had given them. 

"Care to share with the rest of the class?" Rickover asked. 

"It's funny, I mean. I... I wanted a boy but... well, fifty fifty odds. Before she was born I had all these ideas flying through my head about what she was going to be like. Who she would grow into. You can probably guess what I imagined. Then all that just went away the first time I saw her. She was just so... perfect." 

Jacob looked up at his new boss. 

"Ahem... But knowing, seeing. That somewhere out there in some timeline or another she became an Air Force captain. That's... That's reassuring." 

"Don't worry, I'll make damn sure that you spend as much time with her as your duties here will allow, lieutenant. So, yeah, the cameras NIS placed allowed us to see the gate address that the intruders dialed." 

"Can we go to this address?" Asked Captain Hammond. 

"We have already dialed this address, yesterday. The gate opened. But the probe we were going to send in suffered a malfunction when we were pulling out the power cords. So seeing as how the Stargate is such a power hog we shut down and... It took awhile to fix the robot. But fixed the robot is so we are going to send it through today. So, would you care to see the world your daughter helped dial? lieutenant?" 

"Yeah, but... Okay. I can understand why you wanted Hammond to testify. But why do you want us working for you?" 

"Two big reasons. One, I consider myself a fairly good judge of talent. Two, having you two is going to be a way for the Air Force to continue to be a part of the Stargate program even after they screwed it up for all these years. Even if all this works out I'm going to need to not have the Air Force as an outright enemy."


	4. The planet Aemon.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first direct contact between the Navy's Stargate command and the government of another world.

"Chevron seven is locked." 

Send in the probe. 

"Telemetry coming through, now." A technician announced. "Oh, it's a park, a very pretty park. Near a coliseum. There's... Women everywhere."

"Women?"

"Yeah, women, a few girls. No men whatsoever. There's a... There's a girl coming up to the probe. Do we have audio? I'd like to send a message."

"Your mic?" 

"Yeah." 

Click. 

"Hello, um, we come in peace?" 

The crowd that had gathered around the gate exploded into a fury of screams. Women and girls went running in all directions. 

But not the redheaded girl of about sixteen years of age standing in front of the probe. 

She just reached out and touched one of the probes robotic arms and spoke in Latin. 

"Who are you? Did you turn this thing on yesterday? We've all been been camped out here since yesterday waiting to see if anything else would happen. And why do you sound like my grandma?" 

"Um, my name is Hyman Rickover, yes we did turn this thing on yesterday and your grandma sounds like an interesting person." 

"He speaks Latin?" Asked Carter. 

"Why not? Shut up!" Replied a technician. 

"For Cronus's sake! Get away from that thing! It has a man's voice!" 

"That's what a man..? Oh right, yeah... recordings." 

The girl took out her phone. 

"Hey grandma Philo, yeah, you know how you said that I could always call you if I was in any kind of big trouble? I think I'm in trouble now." 

"Yeah sweetie, you're already on the news. Hold your phone up to the probes microphone please. Okay. Am I talking to whoever is operating the probe?" 

"Yes, who might you be?" 

"I'm admiral Philo Capon of the Aemonus combined fleet. Where are you broadcasting from? How have you generated this effect?" 

"This device that you are looking at is a robotic probe. Behind it is an active, Stargate. Admiral, I would like to ask a favor of you. I would like to see the nights sky over your planet. We have opened this gate between our world, your world and one other world. A dying world. One of our men got stuck on this dying world several decades ago and in order to get him back we need to chart the positions of as many of these gates on as many worlds as we can. In order to do that we need to use our equipment to look at the nights sky over your world. That's all we want from you." 

"Give us some time to consider your proposal. We will study your probe and be able to work out further communications later. For now, please shut down the portal and leave my granddaughter out of this. Oh, but as for your man on a dying world..." 

Admiral Capon sent a photo message with four Stargate addresses on it. "Based on the evidence I believe that the bottom address is that of your world. As for the other three addresses we will be sending probes to them shortly. I'll explain later but someone was very insistent that these four addresses be given to you." 

"Roger," Replied Rickover. "We are sending through a box with information about our planet, culture and technology. There will be a clock inside with a 24 hour countdown timer. That's one of our days. Once the timer is up we will redial your address." 

Rickover gestured for Hammond to grab the box and throw it through. 

"Okay, we got it. Thank you." 

The gate closed. 

"So, that went well... I think." Observed lieutenant Carter. 

"Very well, now, get that address off to Littlefield at Heliopolis immediately!" 

"Request permission to deliver the information personally." Said Jacob. 

"If you want to run the risk of the address being incorrect and being stranded like Littlefield was... Just remember, I'm not authorizing combat pay." 

"Understood." Said Lieutenant Carter as the gate was dialed for Heliopolis. Rickover got on the phone and called Catherine Langford, she had been consulting on the project and was currently at a hotel nearby. Rickover wanted her here when Ernest came back. 

Four hours later Jacob Carter escorted Ernest Langford through the gate into the arms of Catherine Langford. 

"So who is she?" Asked admiral Capon

"She showed up at the colosseum three hours after the earthlings opened the gate she claims to be a formerly ascended being who worked closely with an organization called SG1. Operated by the United States Air Force out of a base called Cheyenne Mountain. She's not one of ours, her fingerprints and DNA profile don't match with anyone on Aemon." 

Admiral Capon listened to the visitors story. 

"So, your cousin confessed to the murder of this Jack O'Neill kid right before she falls into a coma?" 

"Yes." 

"And she has been in the hospital ever since?" 

"Yes." 

"And you believe that everything that has happened over the past few days is the result of this Morgan de la Fey rewriting reality itself?" 

"Yes to make sure that our galaxy is ready to defeat the Ori instead of hiding from them." 

"And because you have all this information about these... Ori and this Anubis. Which according to you might not exist anymore, you think it earns you a spot on a team which for all I know doesn't even exist yet?" 

"I'd settle for one of your SG teams, admiral." 

"Excuse me?" 

"Well, there's an SG1 under US Military command. But you are going to be forming your own teams, right?" 

"Perhaps..." 


	5. Trust.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ernest Littlefield is rescued and Rickover wanders through the gate.

"Okay, so, who am I speaking to again?" 

"This is admiral Hyman Rickover of the us navy." 

"You're kidding me!? You're an admiral too?" 

"Yes." 

"What's your command? Uh... What kind of job do you do?" 

"I'm in charge of naval propulsion. You?" 

"Im a submarine commander."

"Really? Okay, so what do you do with your submarines?" 

"In all honesty...? not much. Aemonus is a world ruled entirely by one government. We maintain a submarine fleet in the event of an attack by aliens. We know alien life exists, we have numerous artifacts and they are presumed hostile. So we maintain a defensive posture. But haven't had an actual war in over a thousand of years. Service in the Aemonian fleet usually just means doing a lot of preventative maintenance work and the occasional deployment. Usually to assist with cleanup from natural disasters. Show me some of your boats."

"Excuse me?" Asked Rickover. 

"Pictures of your boats. Hold them up to a camera. I'll show you mine if you show me yours." 

Philo held up a communications device. 

"I mean, look at this thing. Our... Children play with these. But I bet this phone has more computing power than anything you have... Admiral." 

Rickover wrote a note out to a gate room technician. "Get some pictures of our warships. Make sure it's our obsolete vessels." 

"Okay one moment..." 

Photos were printed up. 

"This is the USS Scamp, a Gato class submarine, it's one of our..." 

Admiral Capon burst into laughter. 

"You're kidding me right? No, that's, thats got to be something you made up to try to trick me, right? Hold it closer to the camera!" 

Rickover did so. 

"This... Is an active duty warship on your planet and not a parade float?" 

"Well, no not active duty. This is a boat that was decommissioned some years ago." 

"Good lord. You fucking iron salt! That's... Wow. You people sail on those things? No, we haven't sailed around in anything like that in centuries. Is it supposed to be a submarine?" 

"Yes." 

"Wait, is it... Is it a diesel electric boat?" 

"Yes." 

"Oh wow, damn... No, no we. Diesel, Diesel engines?... Underwater? Okay, I suppose we had the same idea. This is... These are some photos of one of our older boats." 

She showed them pictures of a boat in a dry dock.

Rickover whimpered at the sight of the picture... He couldn't help but say. 

"Ooh that's a big boat!" 

The Aemonian admiral stared at the probes camera and smiled. 

"This was the Pegasus. My great aunt served on this boat. 130 meters long, powered by an early generation... fusion reactor. This old girl was decommissioned the day I was born. Nowadays... Well. Our current duty ships may not be as numerous as they once were. But they are far more advanced than this." 

"So, have I... Whetted your appetite for more? Admiral Rickover? Would you like to step through that gate and have a good long look at my... Reactors?" 

Rickover stood up from his chair, took off his headphones and walked straight through the open Stargate. 

The moment he came out the other side he found himself surrounded by heavily armored soldiers with very advanced looking weapons. 

The Aemonian admiral said, "sorry about this." And sprayed Rickover in the face with knockout gas. 

Admiral Rickover woke up in a comfortable bed, in his own clothes. 

He was in a cell. Albeit a very well furnished one. 

Admiral Capon was sitting on a chair next to the bed. 

"And once again, I'm really sorry about this, but we had to be sure that you were what you said you were." 

Admiral Rickover sat up, noticed several needle pricks on his arm and asked, "well, what do your medical tests say?" 

Capon replied, "that besides being a bit old. You are in good health. No symptoms of the plague or any other serious illness. We took the liberty of purging a few things from your system while you were out. Now you're in excellent health." 

Rickover felt himself over. Nothing felt like it was missing. 

The two admirals stared at each other in silence for a good long while. 

It was eerie. 

It made absolutely no sense. 

Yet here they were. Separated by thousands of light years and thousands of years of history. A man and a woman who were as close to mirror images of each other as could be imagined. Even their suits looked damn similar. 

Eventually admiral Capon broke the silence. 

"Listen, I... Okay, here's the deal. We... Would like your help. We don't need your help but we would like it. This is going to sound incredibly silly but you are... You may..." 

"Spit it out already!" Said Rickover. 

"It seems... You're the fulfillment of a prophecy." 

"A... Prophecy?" Asked Rickover in disbelief. "Can you tell me what it is?" 

"Not... Yet... Look, I know we haven't gotten off on the right foot for diplomacy but even if we didn't have this... Alleged Ancient pushing us to ally with each other. We have a prophecy from the woman who founded our society. It was a message she repeated over and over and over again and in order to fulfill it. I think we need your help. And just for the record..." 

Admiral Capon stood up and stretched out as she continued to explain. 

"Up until two days ago I thought men were all ruthless, psychotic, unstable monsters who couldn't be allowed to exist. Hundreds of years ago this planet was hit by a plague that caused all holders of a Y chromosome of the human species to become unstable, violent and ill. We have been able to keep our society going via careful cloning of female DNA but over the past few years there has been much talk that we can allow cloned male babies to be born again. To go back to the old way of propagating the species. Even if the prophecy is just nonsense. You can help us, and we... Can help you..." 

Admiral Capon pulled a large text book out of a bag and tossed it on the bed. Rickover read the cover, helpfully translated into English. 

"Fusion reactor fundamentals. First edition." 

"We're in the eighteenth edition. Our youngest students are often provided with that textbook in the fifteenth edition. It's no loss to our military capability to have you look at that." 

Rickover looked through a few pages. 

All English. 

Lots of technical information. Detailing things he understood... Just barely. 

He slammed it shut. 

He didn't dare say it out loud but he had become aroused by what he had just seen. It was all so simple and elegant. Attempting a disinterested tone he replied. 

"So what do you want from me?" 

"I will have to tell you that later. For now, the problem that the Stargate presents is a political one. My military has control at the moment but little room to maneuver here. The secret of the Stargate has already been spread across the planet. My granddaughter personally saw to that. The powers of this planet are tripping over themselves to either have the gate buried or to take advantage of what it may offer. So we are in a delicate position. The military will probably only retain control of this program so long as there are no more shocks, surprises or screw ups. I need you to go back to Earth and bring back at least one more trustworthy man." 

The door to the cell clicked open. 

Guards with weapons waited outside. 

As Rickover stood up he asked, "fine, under one condition. You come with me, call it a gesture of trust." 

"Okay, but if I'm going to Earth then I'm bringing along my aide de camp. Oh Voss?" 

A strikingly tall and frighteningly muscular mixed race brunette woman in a formal looking uniform stood to attention. 

The vortex opened. 

"Attention Stargate Command, this is Rickover. Requesting permission to return to Earth with two guests." 

"Permission granted admiral, come on through. We have everything ready." Replied Captain Hammond. 

Rickover, Capon and Voss stepped through the gate. 

Littlefield, Capon and Voss were all kept in quarantine. 

Littlefield wasn't alone. Catherine Langford was with him in the quarantine chamber the whole time. Even though they had talked over the radio many times since the navy reopened the gate, Ernest was still deeply starved for physical contact. 

Voss was alone in her room. She was observed by Stargate personnel and could talk to Admiral Capon over the phone. She was given some books with basic information about Earth and the English language. But she appeared to be in a phenomenally deep state of meditation for most of her time in quarantine. 

Capon though. She spent most of her time talking to Rickover. 

Rickover had stacks of scientific books, documents and other things to go over. Philo and Hyman talked for days, only briefly stopping every now and then for a nap, food or toilet breaks.

Lieutenant Carter monitored their situation for the first eight hours until he was relieved by Lieutenant commander Rostrum. 

"So, I take it those two are getting along?" 

Carter held up a notebook full of physics notes and said, "I think my daughter is going to love this, well, once she learns how to read. They are talking about something right now that I can't even follow. I can't really follow any of it but they were saying something about purging xenon gas from radioactive elements. But with what we already have we... I mean, it's technology at a level that is just astounding. So, I take it the castle at Heliopolis has been secured?" 

"It's the Seabees job now. But yeah, they are shoring it up in place for now. Once enough of the right equipment gets through they will move the gate inland. You know it's really creepy seeing that look on the admirals face... But seeing it two times?" 

Rostrum sat down in the chair as Carter stood up. Rostrum observed. 

"I've worked with Rickover for years and I have never seen him like this. No one has ever seen him like this. Seeing him this happy, it... Really creeps me out." 

Carter walked away saying, "yeah I know the type. Take lots of notes." 

Voss opened her eyes. 

She had heard everything. 

She smiled. 

And went back to her relishing of the unique experience of meditating on another planet.


	6. The Rubinesque one.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tale is told of how Aemon became a planet of women.

Rostrum, Rickover, Voss and Capon stepped through the Aemon Stargate. The technicians on the other side were put at ease by the smiles on their faces. 

Capon pointed to one of the technicians and said, "ah, this is Johanna Etannil. The maddest mad scientist I have ever met. I mentioned something about a prophecy to you. Well, it's time you found out what that is about." 

Johanna led them into a nearby room which contained a library and a typewriter. Johanna explained. 

"You're probably wondering how it is that Aemon became a planet of women. Well, the answer is kinda long and weird. We knew that we were from a different planet. But those colonists had no idea how to get back to that planet. We were cut off after the Stargate was buried in lava." 

"Well, those early colonists had it a bit rough from time to time. But they figured things out. They had agriculture, seeds from our home-world. The planet had a variety of good food and wild game. And then one day a farmer turned up some ruins. These ruins hold the remains of what was later determined to be a military base held by a race of aliens who used to control the planet. They were called the Ataniks. Within this base was found a dozen operational Atanik armbands. Their primary weapon system. The armbands were studied and a use was found. But a decision was made then and there not to use them because of several very distinct warning messages found around the facility. It seems the Atanik's all died as the result of a virus that mutated as a result of their experiments with the armbands." 

"Working from the Atanik's notes we built up a civilization. Cities, technologies. Pretty crude by your... Current Earthling standards. Something roughly parallel with where you were in the thirteenth hundred year past the birth of your God. We had learned the fine details of the Armbands function and we began experimenting with them. We had learned that the virus just killed Atanik's. According to our understanding it wouldn't hurt a human. Well... We probably should have stopped right there and asked, "well what about all humans?" But no, we just slapped that thing right on. Or I should say, a militant feminist mad scientist slapped it on. Claritch Zeoni. I mean what a fucking name that chick had. She put it on, and just to be cute she took the other eleven and distributed them to her compatriots." 

"What she didn't know was that her attempt to... Curb what she saw as the patriarchal excesses of Aemonian society at the time would see the end of all men on this planet. Now here's where things get really weird and incredibly disgusting and unbelievably embarrassing. So, you have these twelve... really nasty women who all have these armbands. Now, remember, these things enhance your speed, stamina, all of your physical attributes. But that means you gotta eat. Have you ever seen a super powered. Super hungry, super angry militant feminist eating? It was legendary, and then their bodies started converting their fat stores to muscle. The police came to arrest them. They punched them out. All of the cops. And then they made their escape. Running from city to city. Oh the first change of scenery was just to get past the police. But the second one..." 

Johanna started breathing slowly. 

"The twelve were driven by an unimaginable desire for food that soon turned into an unimaginable hunger for... Other things. They... They went looking for sex and they found it, okay? And as their powers grew things just got worse... Basically the Atanik virus was forced into a Petri dish with samples of every single virus and strain of DNA on the planet. We were always a very genetically pure species on this planet. The consequences of the Atanik virus was its mutation into the virus that wiped out the Y chromosome in all the humans on this planet. But despite the fact that we had no men our civilization did not go extinct. Because of this..."

Joanna pointed at the typewriter. 

"Miss Desala claims that she saw a woman wearing an Atanik armband typing out a thousand page paper on wormhole physics. Our dear founder of modern Aemonia learned that she could also read books really fast and write very fast. So fast that the graphite in her pencils would disintegrate as she wrote. So she turned her... Not insignificant resources to this. We had only begun the very crudest experiments with moveable type. She leaped out tech forward to create this. A nigh indestructible typewriter. Would you like to try it?" 

Rickover and Rostrum nodded. Rickover went first. 

"We had the keys reconfigured to something like your current English language. Some of the keys are blank. There was no equivalent in your language." Explained Johanna. 

She cranked up part of a roll of paper. 

"Alright, proceed." 

Rickover lowered his finger to the W key. As he pressed it nothing happened. 

He pressed harder. 

Harder still. 

Nothing was moving. Johanna announced. "Oh wait hang on, back up." 

She adjusted a knob on the side. 

"There, had the keys set to 'end of Atanik Armband cycle, should be start of cycle. Proceed." 

Rickover pressed the W. 

The typewriter blasted a W into the paper. 

Rickover exhaled. 

The nearest equivalent for what he had just done that he could imagine was nailing the ten ring with an experimental weapon, at the edge of that weapons range, on the first shot. What Rickover didn't yet understand was the narcotic effect of the technology on a mind such as his. This typewriter was a mechanical device. He assumed that it was electrically powered and that's why the W had been imprinted with such force. What he didn't know was that this machine had been created with so many perfectly machined parts that the typewriter was actually powered by the Casmir effect. So many parts separated by nanometers of space that when he pressed the key energy was pulled directly out of the zero point field. 

As Rickover began to realize what he was dealing with he typed out H A T after the W.

He was in near nirvana. 

Space bar. 

'Do you want from us?" 

He fell off the typewriter, blissed out of his mind into Rostrums arms. Johanna looked at the paper and replied. 

"What do we want from you? Well... We want to fit an Atanik armband on one of your citizens and fulfill a prophecy that has been bothering us ever since the men were wiped out on this planet. The prophecy reads as follows... Ahem, "I have completed my penance for my crimes. The Aemonian Y chromosome will rise again. And the restored Aemonian people will rise to heights undreamt of. When the Rubinesque woman beyond this world is made whole by the armband, the Astria Porta and the mirror beyond the Astria Porta. Claritch Zeoni was pretty insistent about this. And we didn't even know what an Astria Porta was until you guys showed up." 

"So... You're telling me that you need a fat chick?" Asked Rostrum. 

"Aha, so that's what Rubinesque means! And no... We don't need anything from you. But we would be much more willing to share if you could spare us the fattest woman you can find on your planet." 

Rickover woke up. 

"Fat chick? No problem, I can make it happen. Or... Actually I think Rostrum is going to have to be the one who makes that happen. He's a bit more of a... Lothario than I am. But either way, yes, we can make this happen." 

It took a couple weeks to find a suitable candidate. But one was delivered to Johanna's laboratory. 

"This? This is who you brought me? Are you kidding me!?" 

"You wanted a fat chick, we got you a fat chick." Replied Rostrum. 

"The prophecy said Rubinesque which apparently refers to the work of one of your artists, Peter Paul Rubens. It didn't mean a fucking BEHEMOTH! This woman weighs... Good lord, Fifty Stone! I'm not even sure if she can survive the armband. I'm going to have to do some tests first." 

She opened the door to the chamber. 

"Hello, I'm Johanna Etannil. I'll be doing some tests on you to see if you will be able to work with us today." 

"Your planet is beautiful, miss Etannil." 

"Why thank you. Hope you don't mind if I plant these sensors here, here and here... Okay, now all I need is a small blood sample." 

"We took samples of her blood before she stepped through the gate." Said Rostrum. 

"Yes I know that lieutenant commander, and now I need a sample from her now, fresh out of the tap to compare to those samples. I need all the data points I can." 

Miss Frankel obliged and the blood draw was quick and mostly painless. 

The sample was entered into the diagnostic machines. 

"Tsk tsk tsk, not good. Your blood sugar levels are still a bit high for this." 

"Oh come on, I can read your sensors... She's below the limit." Said Rostrum. 

"Yeah but she's still close to that limit." 

"Then we shore her up with dialysis or something." 

"Geeze, you're really in a rush, aren't you?" 

"Yeah well... Are we going to do this or should we come back later after we have Miss Frankel run some wind sprints?" 

"Okay, alright..." 

Johanna reached for a locked safe. She entered a combination and out came an Atanik arm device. Joanna asked. 

"The navy did brief you on the side effects, right? Narcotic effects, risk of multiple organ failure and death?" 

"Yeah, they also said that it might turn me into some kind of oracle with superpowers?" 

"Yeah, perhaps, or it might kill you, it would be safer if we waited until your blood sugar levels were lower." 

"No more waiting, I know it's a risk. I've spent my entire life feeling powerless against myself, against the world. Nothing ventured... Nothing gained." 

"These armbands literally have written on them. 'With great power comes great responsibility." 

"Yeah a responsibility to fight evil aliens. Am I going to get to punch them in the face?" 

"Possibly." 

"Well then let's get to it." 

"Okay... don't say I didn't warn ya." Johanna said as she clasped the armband onto Bethany. It barely fit but it lit up and began functioning.

"So... What happens now?" Asked Bethany. 

"Now? We wait one hour for initial symptoms in this chamber. Then we move to a specially prepared facility down the hall where we will see what the armband will do to you. Try to keep your heart rate low. Your heart is a bit... On the delicate side according to my... Oh Ye gods." 

"What?" 

"Oh, nothing, nothing. Just your government didn't do quite as much testing as I wanted them too. I have to leave for a moment. Bathroom is behind that door. There's a fridge over there with food, glasses over there, water spigot and a spigot that dispenses a special mineral water. I'll be right back." 

Joanna stepped out of the chamber. Her tablet had triggered an alert. One of the secure doors was not secure. The virus could not be allowed to escape the complex. 

A day later Rickover showed up to observe the experiment. He went into the chamber and discovered what might be the foulest smell he had ever smelled in his life. 

His eyes were watering as he asked, "is miss Frankel still alive?" 

"Barely!" Shouted Bethany as she threw up. Johanna explained. 

"Her metabolism was a mess before, now? Now her metabolism is stripping every single fat cell in her body for energy and raw materials to build a body strong enough to handle the energy surging into her. Trouble is..." 

She threw up again. 

"She needs strong bones to handle what's to come and fat cells are just raw energy. It's like her body is trying to build an engine but it's only working material is gasoline. The gasoline has to be 'traded off' for other things." 

"Good lord, what have you been feeding this girl?" Asked Rickover. 

"Nothing but vitamins or water and mineral solution. We're pushing as many pure ingredients through her system as we dare... But... Sheesh! We have the notes from the twelve describing how unpleasant the process they could be. But none of them were anywhere near as fat as this woman. We're in uncharted territory here. And on this subject. I know our alliance demands that we not fuck with each other's governments. But I strongly suggest that someone in your government ban something called high fructose corn syrup. And sooner rather than later." 

Rickover walked over to Bethany, hugging a toilet bowl. She was undeniably lighter than she had been. Loose skin was sagging off of her. Without looking up from the toilet bowl. She held up her arm and said. "Cut this thing off of me, Admiral." 

"I thought these things had a narcotic effect?" Asked Rickover. 

"They do. My nurse there says that if it didn't I would be in a coma." 

She retched into the toilet again. 

"What are you standing around for? Go get a machete or something. Chop this thing off!" 

"Nah, I think you can get through this." 

"Ayi yi yi." 

She grabbed a glass of distilled water and drank it. 

"There's going to be nothing left of me once this is over." 

"No, you're going to be stronger than you've ever been." 

Three days later Rickover checked in again. 

Bethany was walking on a treadmill and bizarrely the loose skin around her body was retracting, visibly. 

"So she's over the hump?" Rickover asked Johanna. 

"Yep, we got her all the way to baseline human health. The high fructose corn syrup in all that soda she drank did a hell of a lot of damage to her liver. But the liver has the best healing factor of any organ in the body. Hers has practically been turned inside out. She's still shitting toxic waste as opposed to normal human stool. We're dumping that shit into a methane digester tank to make sure that the toxins are properly broken down and all the virus is consumed by bacteria before it's released into a controlled and contained ecosystem." 

"How's her viral load?" 

"Manageable for now. It really looked like the virus was going to kill her there a couple of times. Sure killed the shit out of her fat cells. But while the virus was thrashing around in her toxic body we learned everything we need to know to allow males to be born on Aemon again."

"Hm... Did you confirm your theory that the armbands use zero point energy?" 

"I did and they do. I'm sorry I know you Earthers prefer to have things printed out on paper but I don't think you want to walk out of here with a shipping container full of printouts." 

Rickover grabbed the thumb drive and sat down. 

"I have some time before I have to be back. I'd like to talk to her before I leave." 

"Sure." 

Johanna was about to buzz him into the room when Rickover asked. "Are we going up or down?" 

"Up my dear Earthling. As far... Up as we like." 

Bethany Frankel had just read and now understood every single technical textbook dealing with modern Aemonian technology and life on Aemon. 

And she hadn't even been able to read Aemonian until a few days ago. 

She sat down at the typewriter. Joanna instructed her. 

"Okay, nice and careful now. Type out the word, 'why." 

She gently reached down to the keyboard and pressed the w. 

Before her instructor could say anything else she typed out. 

"This... This was a very good typewriter." 

The instructor sat down opposite her and reached for some printed images. 

"Now, do you know what this is?" Joanna asked. 

"USS Enterprise, a nuclear powered aircraft carrier." She typed out. 

"Do you believe that one of our aircraft could land on it?" 

She thought about Aemonian aircraft designs. There were many. Some of which could easily land on this carrier. Others which would be... Absurd to try to land on a carrier. 

"Specify." She typed. 

"Barracuda type fighter." 

She could see the fighter landing on the carrier in her minds eye. 

"Yes, I believe so." 

"Ah good, now let's get into the nitty gritty. How do we make an Ion Cannon?" 

Joanna held up a picture that had been discretely taken during the evacuation of the Tollan Homeworld. 

Frankel looked at the photo and asked. "Do you have more information?" 

"Yes of course, scans of its operating system. It's theorized that it shoots a ball of ionized plasma at distant targets. The substance being ionized is Xenon. We can get all the xenon we need from molten salt reactors, which as you know, still power most of our civilization."

Bethany looked at the details of the design. The system of tanks and energizers that drove the device and said. "Impossible with available materials. This design uses a substance that is not found on this planet. It is significantly stronger than any metal on Aemon." 

"Okay, what if we build in some margin?" 

"Margin?" 

"Can this design be made of existing materials, if? We... Scale the design up to reduce the stresses on the components?" 

Frankel looked things over. 

She examined a certain pressure vessel. 

She substituted an Aemonian super alloy in her calculations and said. "Yes..." 

She reached for a nearby pencil and began drawing on some nearby paper. She drew slowly to not damage the graphite and produced a design. 

It was three times the size of a Tollan cannon. In addition to its requirement for thousands of pounds of Xenon from MSR's, it was also powered by a compact molten salt reactor. It was big and crude and theoretically it would be just enough to cut through a shielded spaceship like butter. 

Johanna said, "alright, now that the butchers bill has been paid, let's get on to the fun stuff."

Bethany kept on typing. 

Faster and faster. 

The questions came, faster and faster. 

Then she realized something. 

She really needed to pee. 

She went to the bathroom and as she was leaving the bathroom she noticed that someone had set up a spread of food. 

She walked over to it. 

And she devoured it all in the blink of an eye. 

"Okay, I know I eat fast but I don't eat that fast. What..? What happened to my body!? I've become..." 

She looked in a nearby mirror. 

"Hot?! Wait, I remember now. I volunteered for a navy program and I'm..." 

She looked down and saw the armband. 

"Yep, you're still in the navy program and its time for you to get back to work." 

She turned around and saw a tall old man and a tall old woman. They were both in suits and they looked so similar that it was baffling who was who. 

"Give her a break, Hyman. She's been typing for twelve hours straight." Said the woman. 

"Yeah, well, this fulfills your end of the bargain. What about my end?" Replied Rickover. 

"Okay, fine, lets have a woman who has never even seen one of your boats do exactly what I did and point out the flaws in your crappy design." 

"It is not crappy! This is going to be our lead attack boat after the Los Angles class. This is my future, and I want a second, third and fourth opinion before I go trusting your opinion of it... For all I know this design is brilliant and you want to sabotage it." 

"Sabotage it?! Oh har de har har.... Fine, show the woman your paper boat, I'll be in the waiting room." The woman said as she stomped out. 

Rickover sat in the questioners chair and handed Bethany Frankel a specially compiled book detailing the design blueprints of the Seawolf class attack submarine. 

She read it and pronounced. "Design is unfeasible." 

"Why?" Asked Rickover. 

She exhaled and started typing up a sampling of the reasons why the design wouldn't work. Going down to absurdly small details. 

Rickover fumed. "Okay, you're so smart, design me a new boat." 

"No." 

"No? Why no?" 

"If you're good at something never do it for free. I want... Five percent of the construction budget for this monstrosity, in cash, deposited into my account. Don't dump it all at once though. Let's just call it a consulting fee for services rendered." 

"Five... Percent?!" 

"Hey, the Aemonians caught me in a good mood and I don't know when I'm going to run out of steam and have this armband fall off. Tick... Tock... Admiral Rickover." 

"Damn it, three percent! And only if it pays off. If it doesn't then you don't get squat!" 

"I'll be generous and call this my patriotic duty to my country. Four percent. Tick, tock... Admiral." 

"Okay fine! Four percent!" 

"Ask your questions." 

"How do we solve the... CLASSIFIED!"


	7. Unconventional research techniques.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The alliance between Earth and Aemon is formalized in a most unconventional way.
> 
> Warning! Contains implied Yuri.

"So why does Philo here call you the maddest of mad scientists? I mean your techniques have seemed pretty straightforward from what I've seen." Asked Rickover. 

"Johanna comes up with weird ideas. Ideas that have a habit of pushing right through the limits of what's acceptable and justifying their violation." Replied Admiral Capon. 

"Okay, that's an... odd way to put it. So when does Miss Desala get here?" 

"She's in the building, they are just checking her papers at the front desk right now." 

"Ah good, so, did you dial all of those Stargate addresses she gave you?" 

"Yes and they all led to interesting places. This one led to a planet with the biggest pyramid anyone has ever seen. Our probe detected evidence of a scientific impossibility there." 

"An... Impossibility?" 

"There is something there slows down tachyons. Is that impossible enough for ya?" 

Rickover gave an amused chuckle at that notion. 

"The second address led to a planet which is dying. But the civilization there is very... Very advanced, even by our standards. We are negotiating an arrangement with them to assist in their evacuation. They call themselves the Tollan. The third address... Well, we're not sure about that one. All we have found so far is ruins but we're going to dig deeper. There's some anomalous electrical signals. We believe it to be the site of an Ancient civilization. And well, we both know where the fourth address leads." 

The door to the conference room opened. 

Admiral Rickover, Jacob Carter, George Hammond, Philo Capon and Johanna Etannil stood up for their guest. 

"Please, sit down." Said Oma as she took her seat. "I'm not that special." 

Admiral Capon chuckled and said, "you've provided evidence to things beyond belief, miss Desala. I hope you will forgive us for our... Deference. Well, go ahead and tell them what you told us." 

"So yeah, that's the whole thing. It's like some kind of rules trick or something. I'm not allowed to remember anything from when I was ascended. But because I was keeping a close eye on SG 1... I remember what they did, where they went, who they fought. Right up until..." 

"Until I died and you started fist-fighting this Anubis guy across the universe." Interrupted Carter. 

Rickover seemed relaxed, while his lieutenant hyperventilated at the thought of dying with a symbiotic alien entity in his head, Rickover couldn't help but ask. 

"Okay, so... This may sound a little greedy, but someone is going to ask it, might as well be me. Do you have any memories of me? Or admiral Capon? Or anyone on Aemon?" 

"No just SG1 and while they did work with the navy. Your name was never mentioned." 

"Hmm 2003... I'd be... I'd probably have been retired by then. I suppose my next question will have to be... Now that we're here are we supposed to start fighting all these enemies that the Air Force... Stirred up in some other timeline?" 

"Is that fair?" Asked captain Hammond. "To say that it was the Air Force's fault?" 

Rickover glowered at him and said. 

"Well, let's see... According to the formerly enlightened being from another plane of existence. She and her cousin had to rearrange reality itself to undo your services fuckups!" 

"That's not fair!!!" Carter exploded. "And that's even if you believe her! I mean... Why should we believe her? Just because she... She..." 

Carter sank back down in his chair. Admiral Capon stood up and said, "gentlemen, gentlemen... Please... If you think this is weird for you imagine how weird it feels for us! Now, obviously... None of us are about to step through that gate and go provoking the most powerful and evil races in the galaxy... Or another galaxy... Or galaxy far far away ruled by ascended masters who are pure evil. I propose that we take a moment and ask what we all want from this alliance moving forward... And with that in mind... Johanna... Let's do this thing." 

Johanna reached under the table and pulled out a precision made metal box. Inside were shot glasses that looked like they had been made with great precision with clear indicators of how much liquid was inside. 

The admiral took out a variety of glass bottles out of a similar box and began pouring them together into a cocktail mixer. 

Oma and the Earthlings just looked on in bafflement as the Admiral shook a martini in front of them. Then poured the liquid in a very specific amount into glasses for all there. 

"What... Is this?" Asked Hammond. 

"This is the last chance to turn around. We have gotten what we need from you. If you Earthlings want to stay out of this galaxies problems then this is your last chance to go home, bury your Stargate and study what you have already learned until you are advanced enough to rival our civilization. Oma, you may stay on Aemon. Or you may go to Earth. Wherever you are more comfortable. If you get up and walk out of this room right now, you can forget about us for a good long time. Or at least however long it takes for you to develop a hyperdrive." 

The admiral looked at the glasses anxiously and continued. 

"We will be entering into a military alliance against the Goau'auld. Perhaps also the Wraith, the Ori, the Aschen, the Replicators and who knows what else. If we are to go into battle together then we need to know each other and we need to trust each other. This formula will dissolve the barriers between our respective consciousnesses. Our entire civilization was built on the rapid acquisition and dispersal of knowledge. This is another technique where we do that. This... This is going to be sharing at a level that I'm pretty sure you would be uncomfortable with." 

The admiral and her pet mad scientist hooked their arms into each other. And drank from each other's glasses. 

Then they sat back down. 

"Well, in or out?" Johanna asked after an uncomfortably long silence. 

Oma Desala drank her shot. 

Johanna and Philo looked at each other with genuine horror. 

Rickover saw the horror on their faces, held up his glass and asked... "What's in these?" 

"It's a specially mixed hallucinogenic drug cocktail that facilitates... I suppose you might call it synthetic telepathy. We are about to learn things about Oma that she would simply be unable to tell us any other way. But the process can get kinda... Weird when you're doing it the first time. You know what, Admiral Rickover... I've changed my mind, you and your minions can go..." 

Rickover downed his shot and said. "I spent three days listening to you explain to me how fusion reactors work. But I think I can still get some more info from you... Three." 

Johanna stood up and announced. "So we're going to facilitate... Naaaaayan fliggle filntisposh!" 

"Oh crud, stuffs kicking in already." Philo said as she grabbed Johanna and stumbled towards the door. 

"Compfliff, wit me plz. We have to get to the next oom over until the rest splits in. You two, go back to Earth. We don't want you here for now..." 

"But the admiral..." Said Hammond. 

"Crazy fucker took his shot. I have no desire to exchange any more knowledge with these people after the whole snakehead thing!" Jacob said as he glared at his glass. 

Carter and Hammond were quickly returned to Earth. 

While the other four were splayed out on a carpeted floor in the other room. 

The four participants dragged themselves into chairs, facing each other. 

Very comfortable chairs. 

"This is insane, this has never been done with a man... Let alone an alien... Man and a de ascended Ancient!" Said Philo. 

"Hey, you were the one who made the invitation!" Replied Rickover. 

"Yeah but you... You... Who are you?" 

"I'm Oma, and that's... Hyman Rickover... Where are we, what's happening here? What's this thing in the middle of the room?" 

"This is a fabricator unit. It can create perfect 3D printed models of anything we can imagine. It can also store data relating to different construction materials. In short, if you can imagine it then this thing can build it. It will be recording our thoughts but the items printed will only be military technologies. Our private, intimate thoughts... We only express... With our bodies."

A device came into existence. 

"What the heck is that?" Asked Johanna. 

"That's a Replicator disruptor. I think, or a model of one. Either way we're going to need it." Said Oma. 

As the display pedestal retracted to store the model Oma exclaimed. "Kelowna, we have to find Kelowna!" 

"What's on Kelowna?" Asked Rickover. 

"Jonas Quinn either is or will be on Kelowna. Jonas Quinn is the key to saving the Asgard!" 

"Oh the little gray friendlies who are even more advanced than you guys. Okay, Kelowna, we will get right on that. Oh... Wow..." Hyman realized that he wasn't looking at a female version of himself. This being was much older than he was. 

Oma and Johanna drifted away as they began to stare at each other. 

"You aren't doing so good, are you?" Asked Rickover. 

Capon smiled and said. "Nope, I don't have much longer. So how do you want to do this?" 

"Do what?" 

"Blend into each other. It's going to be a weird process but we're going to have to become one if we don't want to get overwhelmed by these two..." 

Oma and Johanna were looking at each other with ferocious intensity. 

"Nothing R rated happens?" Asked Rickover. 

"I know you have a wife at home, Hyman and when you're as old as I am... Just... Relax." 

Rickover very carefully walked over to admiral Capon's chair and sat down with her. She felt positively tiny and incredibly cold. 

They looked at Oma and Johanna facing off. 

"So... What are they going to do?" Asked Rickover. 

"Honestly? I don't know. I mean, Oma is a formerly ascended being. And for all we know she has some unprocessed PTSD from her super fight with Anubis. So they might fight, or they might..." 

Oma and Johanna slammed into each other. Kissing ferociously. 

A somewhat grossed out Rickover asked, "this... Is why you call her the maddest of mad scientists... Right?" 

"Yeah pretty much. I mean what kind of lunatic would even imagine the concept of inspecting the mind of a formerly ascended being... Like this?" Replied Capon. 

"Did you know it was going to come to this?" Asked Rickover. 

"Nope, never happened before. Seriously, look into my eyes. Do I look like the kind of person who would have sex with Johanna?" 

Her smile grew ever more smug. 

"At least... while on duty?" 

As the two women kissed more and more deeply Rickover asked. "How long do you think it's been for Oma?" 

"Too long." Replied Capon with a smile on her face. 

After eighteen hours of this they finally emerged from the room. 

Oma was giggling. She had completely forgotten how much fun it could be to be mortal. 

Johanna crawled out the door, grabbed a phone and dialed for her assistants, "wheelbarrow please. Fabrication room three." 

Admiral's Rickover and Capon had kept their clothes on during the whole... Spectacle. But they had come to know each other better than they could have any other way. Rickover helped Capon to her car, then departed back to Earth with Oma. The decision had been made. The US Navy's first SG team would be made up of a blended unit consisting of Commander Rostrum, Captain Hammond, Sergeant Voss and Oma Desala. 

But Oma had to do some training before they went on their first mission.


	8. Abydos.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The newly formed SG-1's first mission, wherein they steal the Eye of Ra in their first encounter with the Gou'ald.

Oma Desala cradled the MP5.

"Chevron four encoded."

She couldn't help but appreciate the irony of all this as she watched the rings turn. She thought back to the first time she had held one. One she had 'stolen' from Jack O'Neill.

After having used every single weapon that had ever existed in the history of the universe to try and fail to kill Anubis. The handy little fixed stock submachine gun was oddly comforting. Not the deadliest weapon in the universe. But more than enough for her, for now.

She looked around as the gate dialed.

Hammond was carrying a USAF standard issue GAU-5 M16 derivative carbine. Rostrum was carrying an accurized M14 with a scope and Voss was carrying something... quite elegant.

The Saker M119 Projector was a standard issue weapon for Aemonian special forces. It could fire a stream of energy which could stun an opponent and plasma pulses at multiple rates of fire. It was small, smooth and kinda dense. It rode in a holster, with a spring loaded telescoping stock. It appeared to be a gently tapering cone with a slightly blunted front end and a couple of protrusions here and there containing a flashlight and a sophisticated optical sight.

Oma had taken a lot of her gear from Aemonian sources. But she had insisted on carrying an MP5. If it had been good enough for the original SG1 it was good enough for her. She intended to train with the M119 before she had to use it in combat. She was sure that with all the switches and buttons of the M119 that she would probably select they hyper death function when she wanted the stun feature or vice versa. The MP5 was much simpler in that regard. The safety-selector switch was easy to understand and she could control it, even on full auto.

Her MP5 did have a few Aemonian enhancements though. A flashlight, a small stunning device. An optic more advanced than any scope on Earth with a camera built in and a module capable of projecting several varieties of laser light.

Their sidearms were all S&W revolvers. The exact same type as were issued to SEAL's of that era. Voss had taken a liking to the stainless steel revolvers. Albeit hers was loaded with some decidedly not standard issue ammunition.

"Chevron seven... Is locked."

"SG-1 you are authorized to begin your reconnaissance mission." Announced Rickover.

Commander Rostrum, Specialist sergeant Voss, Oma Desala and Captain Hammond stepped through the gate to Abydos. Once they were on the other side they quickly made their way to the lower levels of the pyramid.

Oma looked at the engravings and paintings and said.

"The rays of the sun, reveal all."

She shone her laser module at the gem. The wall opened.

Oma observed. "It seemed really odd. When Daniel came up to this wall he did... Something I can't remember what, a hand sign or something that made it look like he was paying respect to Ra. I should have asked him what he was thinking when he did that. Eh, he probably wouldn't have been in the mood to answer me then. Too late now."

"Too early more like." Hammond said as they wandered into the chamber and began tapping on the walls Oma simply walked up to the spot she remembered, tapped it several times and said.

This is it. 

Voss announced, "let me get some pictures and a scan of the material first. Okay, it's stucco, this should be fairly easy to rebuild once we have the eye." 

She took pictures and a laser scan allowing a perfect rebuild of the wall. Voss took a look at the bullets loaded in Oma's magazine, confirming that they were frangibles and gave permission to fire.

Oma announced. "Hold your ears folks!"

Oma cranked off four shots with her MP5 and exclaimed.

"Damn that's loud! Can I get a silencer for this thing?"

"Yeah, sure... Once we get back... If we get back." Hammond replied as he pawed around in the rubble and found. 

"This what we were looking for?" 

He held up the intact eye of Ra. 

Oma nodded in the affirmative and turned around. 

"Rostrum! What are you doing?!" 

"What? I figured that since we were robbing the Pharaohs biggest treasure... Why don't we just help ourselves to his little treasures? I mean... There were also other things that you said we had to find here? A tablet and... Well, what's this?" 

He held up a Zero Point Module. 

"That's a, that's a... That's a..." 

"That's a what... Oma?" 

"This... Is one of those batteries that can power the city of Atlantis... Right?" Said Rostrum. 

Oma nodded. 

"Found the tablet!" Said Voss cheerfully. 

"Get that thing through the gate to Earth! Immediately!" 

They ran upstairs. 

They dialed Earth. The wormhole opened. The GDO was coded and the tablet and the eye of Ra were loaded on the probe and sent through the wormhole back to Earth. 

Voss sent a tight beam transmission to Admiral Capon's glasses. 

As the probe came through, Capon began moving towards the embarkation room. 

As Hyman reached for the Eye of Ra, Capon reached for the Zero Point Module. 

"It's not a joke, it's not a hoax... It's actually... Fucking real!? And we have a way to charge it!?" 

Asked Capon out loud. 

"Well... No, not yet. But we're working on that one." 

Once Rickover confirmed that they had the probe and the various items they had stolen from Ra the gate shut down. SG1 wandered out of the pyramid onto the sands of Abydos.

Rostrum whistled in amazement.

Hammond stretched his arms.

Voss unzipped Oma Desala's backpack and took out a large metal box. Out of it flew dozens of drink coaster sized robots.

"Type 47 mapping and observation drones. If they get cut off from my signal they immediately self destruct. Since they are mostly made of magnesium they will burn with a very bright flame. They will map the terrain and tell us about any unexpected visitors. For now we should probably get out of here."

"There's some caves over there that we can hide in while the probes do their thing." Oma explained.

With each step across the sands of Abydos the planet seemed more familiar to Oma Desala. She fondly remembered the thousands of Abydonians she had saved from Anubis.

She had to save them.

It was her fault they died.

Once they made it to the cave they set up as comfortably as they could. Voss sat back and relaxed as she saw the data flow in from the drones.

"It's going to take awhile for a complete map to form, the sun is going down. How about you three get some food, then get some sleep." Said Voss.

Oma yawned and said. "Okay, I don't know why but I feel really tired. Can I just go straight to sleep?"

Hammond said "okay, if you're not hungry, Rostrum?"

"Nah, don't tell anyone but that trip through the gate kinda kicked my ass. I could use some sleep too."

After Hammond ate a small meal he fell asleep on a bedroll next to Oma. While Voss looked at the data pouring in. Rostrum woke up to take the second watch and asked Voss. "So, now that we have some down time, I have to ask. What's it like where you live?"

"Seneca City? It's... Pretty, blindingly pretty. Creepily pretty. That's something I can't help but notice where our societies differ. Your buildings, your facilities, your world has a... Rough, utilitarian elegance to it. Our world... Everyone is trying to outdo themselves with how pretty and impressive something can be made. We don't burn resources the same way you guys do. But there's still a lot of waste on Aemonia, a lot of unnecessary frills."

Voss stretched out and bit her lip.

"I'm sorry, it's just that... Im sorry. I thought I would be able to handle this professionally, but I suppose I'm going to have to handle it pharmaceutically."

Voss took out another of her devices.

"What's that?" Rostrum asked.

"It's a medical device. It allows me to pump various drugs into my system whenever I need it. And right now I'm going to take a hit of Cholsepizonie. It's a hormone suppressant that should tamper down my libido."

"Your libido?"

"Yeah, it's... I thought I would be able to handle this better than I currently am so I'm taking biology out of the equation."

Rostrum reached over and said, "please don't."

"You don't understand. I've never seen a man in my life outside of pictures and recordings and you are... You're just absolutely adorable! You and Hammond and everyone else at Stargate command, but especially you!"

Voss reached out her hands towards Rostrum's face.

Then pulled back.

"Okay, fine, I'll... I'll hold off on the drugs for now. I'll try to maintain decorum. But man... it's going to be a challenge."

"It's going to be a challenge? Does this seem like a good environment to have a... romantic interlude?" Replied Rostrum.

"Well, yeah. I mean, we're in a cave on a desert planet. We got telemetry streaming in from dozens of drones. The sky is clear and we can see any alien warships coming from a thousand miles away. We got bedrolls right over there... This... Wouldn't be the most primitive place I've made love. There was this place I liked to go with my first girlfriend. It was a run down little cottage on a piece of wooded property owned by my aunt. Perfect place to be alone with someone for a few hours, or even a couple of days. You?"

Rostrum exhaled and said... "Yeah, I'd be up for it too. If we weren't on a deep penetration mission into alien territory with these two pukes guarding our backs. So yeah, let's not indulge. I mean... Do you have someone on Aemonus?"

"Not really, no. I split the sheets with my last partner about four months ago. You?"

"Not at the moment, my... My wife left me for a... Biker cult last month. She has vanished off the face of the Earth."

"Biker... Cult? As in a cult of motorcyclists?"

"Why yes, that's exactly what I mean."

"Unbelievable... Let me just say that biker cults are not unique to your planet, Commander."

Voss got into a different position and asked.

"Arm wrestle me? I want to know how strong you are."

"You want us to arm wrestle?"

"Yeah, I need to know how strong you are."

A couple of days ticked by.

The drones continued to do their thing.

SG1 was preparing to leave Abydos. But on their last night there Oma woke up screaming.

She curled up into the fetal position.

"What's up? Are you okay? Or are we about to die?" Asked Voss.

"Nah, she just woke up from a nightmare," said Hammond.

"What was it about?" Asked Voss.

"Do I...? Am I supposed to tell you?"

"Yeah, I mean, if we're going to be working together and literally sharing a bed we should probably know what your nightmares are about."

"You're going to have to take your little therapy session outside, Voss. Some of us are still trying to get some sleep!" Said captain Hammond.

"Alright, okay..." Oma said as she got up from her bedroll.

Under the skies of Abydos Voss took out a small metal cylinder and said. "I've been saving this for the end of the mission. I've really been looking forward to this."

"You had tobacco on Aemonus?" Asked Oma.

"No, we had something called Teltraxoline. It's basically a pure nicotine steamed into a vapor. But Teltraxoline... It doesn't taste like these things."

Voss was starting to look a little crazy.

"I tried one of the Earthling cigars while I was in quarantine. I'm told that it was crap. A five and dime store product I'm told... This... This is a properly aged Dominican cigar. And they say this is crap compared to something called a Cuban."

Voss took out her lighter. A butane torch lighter with a flame so big that Oma figured that it probably would work as a cutting torch.

Voss took a huge draw of the cigar and sighed contentedly. She blinked each eye slowly and said. "Oh yeah, I think I have to go to Cuba."

She offered it to Oma, she declined.

Voss took another puff and asked. "So, what were you screaming about?"

"Anubis, I... I spent so long fighting him. I had to get to know him. It was... Maybe it was my last phase of punishment for creating him but the crimes, the fighting the... I can't believe I fucked up that bad. I mean, I almost let an entire galaxy die because of my fuckup."

"Your fuckup and their rules. Their, as the Earthlings say... Kafakaesque rules. And didn't you tell us that it was them who sent Anubis back halfway as punishment for you?"

"So what are these nightmares? Something that says I haven't been punished enough?"

"Nah, you just have lingering trauma from the inevitable results of being turned from a pacifist to one of histories most treacherous figures. I suppose that was the point of your punishment. To make you familiar with Anubis. I mean, it was your lack of familiarity with who he actually was that got you into this in the first place... Right?"

Voss scratched her back against a rock.

"You're going to have nightmares, flashbacks. All sorts of stuff shaking loose. But as far as I'm concerned. You've been punished enough. And you're making amends. At the rate you are introducing us to new allies and resources we should be in position to challenge the Goau'auld within a decade."

Voss pointed at Oma's MP5.

"I mean, here you are, carrying a Machine Pistole, covering our backs if the Goau'auld notice us spying on them."

Oma looked up at the Abydonian stars with a smile.

"Something Daniel often asked. They pay us to do this? Thanks, I really feel a bit more relaxed now."

Voss smiled and coughed. "Oh wow, these... Really pack a punch. So, tell me more about these Goau'auld's. What are they like? Besides being evil?"

Alarms sounded.

"What's going on?" Oma asked.

"We have a ship coming in. It's very large and looks very heavily armed." Replied Voss.

Everyone looked at her monitors.

"Holy..." Said Hammond.

"Yeah, I'm recalling all of our drones. Commander Rostrum, to use your services lingo. It's time we go deep and quiet."

The ship landed on the pyramid.

The drones went in as close as they dared.

"This is insane!" Observed Voss. "It's just so... Ridiculous! I mean it's not at all what anyone would think a spaceship would look like. Shields around the hull are of the Creevianst-Bresswood variety. A type long suspected to be ideal for large space going vehicles. Batteries of heavy and... Even heavier plasma cannons. Provision for the carriage of fighters and the ability to carry thousands of ground troops. I'm going to plant a drone in the gate room of the pyramid. When Rickover dials when we miss our check in, in 14 hours I'll tell him to shut down and wait until we dial back. We cannot run the risk of tipping off these guys."

"Guys?" Asked Hammond.

As if on cue alien troops started marching out of the pyramid. They had huge metal helmets. Captain Hammond observed.

"Pyramid ships, Jaffa warriors, staff weapons and big helmets. We have definitely found the Goau'ald."

"I'll see if I can get a drone close enough to do a medical scan on them. But I'll have to do it carefully. For all we know those huge helmets they are wearing have all sorts of sophisticated sensors in them. But for now we can all see the great big eye of Ra on the side of that ship, right?"

The first drone they sent up with a load of naquada exploded.

All the Jaffa noticed was a small spark.

With the second drone the lessons learned from the first were incorporated into boosting the signal enough to cut through the hull and shields of the Hatak. Voss flew the drone through the hallways of the ship. Eventually finding a hot spot for the transfer of data and energy.

"Crystal based tech? Oh wow, this... This is stupid easy to hack into. All you need is their coding language which is just ancient Egyptian expressed in binary... This... Uh guys this is going to take awhile. So, tell me, is there anything on your planet that looks anything like the head of the guard there?"

"It kinda looks like a kangaroo."

Voss accessed an English dictionary via her goggles and said, "kangaroo. A large plant eating Marsupial native to Australia and New Guinea. Keeps its young in a pouch, interesting."

After that years production of naquada was transferred to Ra's ship it took off. That night SG-1 snuck back into the pyramid and dialed Earth.

Hammond knocked the sand off his hat as Rickover and Capon walked up.

"Report."

Rostrum saluted and said. "Sirs, we are in big trouble, really really big trouble. We found Ra. He is still alive and he is flying around in a spaceship big enough and bad enough to cut through the entire Aemonian navy."

Rickover and Capon both swallowed hard. Voss handed Capon her tablet computer.

"Shit, you aren't kidding!" Capon exclaimed. "But you have their... Oh wow."

"What?" Asked Rickover.

"Voss was able to get a probe inside. We know everything we need to know.... Including... How the ships hyperdrive operates and glyph coordinates to thousands of worlds. We also have audio samples of the local language." Added Voss.

Capon scrolled through reams of glyph coordinates on Voss's tablet and announced.

"Good work everyone, very, very good work."


	9. Look again.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A visit to the other two addresses provided by Morgan la Fey.

The four gate addresses that Morgan had provided had been delineated with symbols.

Earth had the symbol for Earth's point of origin.

The second address had been Tollan, delineated with their point of origin. The constellation Crater.

The third address had a skull.

SG1 stepped out of the gate onto this planet.

Oma recognized where she was and walked into the pyramid.

Inside the massive pyramid was a crystal skull on a pedestal. Oma turned around and said, "now remember, whatever you do. Don't shoot anything!"

Rostrum, Hammond and Voss nodded in the affirmative. They had already been briefed but this was still an unnerving experience.

Oma turned and looked into the eyes of the skull.

It began to emit streaks of energy. Voss looked down at her equipment and as expected, ionizing radiation was spiking.

Amidst the energy a man appeared. He exclaimed, "who are you?! Where are we?"

"I'm Oma Desala, and those people are my team. Two of them are from Earth. You're among friends, Doctor Ballard."

"I don't understand... I was just in a Mayan temple in Belize. Where are we? How do you know my name?!"

"I kinda know your grandson, that's how I know your name. We're on another planet. And if you think this is weird just wait until you see..."

A giant alien emerged from the mists and spoke.

"Uuh yu ai ling, ai ling wetail!"

Oma shouted back. "We are enemies of the Goua'ald!"

"Then you are welcome here! Are you Oma?"

"I am."

"Ah, good, your cousin told us that you were coming. We have been looking forward to meeting you."

Oma and Quetzalcoatl spent hours conversing. Quetzalcoatl wanted to talk about the Tollan and about Oma's witnessing of their defeat at the hands of Anubis. He wanted Oma to speak to the Tollan about their history. Their true history. About how Quetzalcoatal had saved the Tollan's ancestors from the Goau'ald. While Oma and Quetzalcoatal talked the rest of SG1 tried to explain things as well as they could to Doctor Ballard.

Once Oma was satisfied she thanked Quetzalcoatal and all five of them looked into the eyes of the skull.

Nicholas Ballard was brought back to Earth through the Stargate. After an extensive debriefing he was sent back to Belize with Captain Carter and a team of Seabees to find, secure and excavate the temple that he had been transported from.

* * *

The fourth address had been delineated with a pair of entwined salamanders.

When SG1 stepped through the gate onto that planet they found it to be a hive of activity. Aemonian technicians were all over the place.

A technician grabbed them and said, "SG1 I presume? So... I assume you want the ten lepta tour?"

"Please." Replied Rostrum.

As they walked away from the Stargate the technician began. "As far as we can tell, this entire planet was turned into a power plant."

"The entire planet?" Asked a stunned Hammond.

"The... entire... planet. This planet has natural deposits of naquada and a variety of other elements. It's uniquely suited to adaptation into a power source. Fortunately the language of the people who reconfigured the planet is fairly similar to ours."

They walked a short distance to a massive, jewel encrusted statue that resembled a double headed salamander. The technician pointed to it and said.

"Judging by the inscriptions the entire planets power supply was funneled into this statue. Which was designed for two primary purposes. Charging Dial Home Devices and charging something called a Zero Point Module... Whatever the heck that is."

"We have one." Said Voss proudly. 

"We... Have one?" Asked the technician.

"It's a device that contains a pocket dimension. It's a power source of unrivaled capacity and we have one." Explained Oma.

The technician tilted her head, made a note on a tablet computer and said. "Well, I imagine your boss is screwing around with it right now. Needless to say I'm going to need to see it sooner rather than later. Our excavations of the area around the gate are almost complete. We estimate that we could have sixty percent of this planets power generation capabilities online within two years."

"What if we send some of our people from NAVSEA08 to help?" Asked Rostrum.

"That might help. But we have things in hand for the moment. No offense Commander but your men would probably just get in the way. Now... Note the crystals on the salamander statue. They are made out of a substance... We have never seen anything like it. The amount of energy that is focused through them when the planet is operational is incredible. As far as we can tell the crystals cause the energy to be expressed in an utterly unique way. It's... It's really hard to come up with a metaphor but the energy is expressed in the lowest energetic state possible. This entire planets worth of power when expressed through these crystals generates an energy flow that..."

The technician hung her head and chuckled.

"The energy flow makes the unpredictabilities of the quantum realm... Predictable. The Salamanders seem to function as observation and measuring devices. It's the double slit experiment applied to an industrial process. This device is incredible, I mean, it's science just on the ragged edge of what we can comprehend... Come with me please."

The technician led them on a hike up to an observation point.

"This whole planet was abandoned a long time ago. As far as we can tell, no one has been here in thousands of years. It's incredible, the degree of redundancy and safety measures that this system has is astounding. It's a good thing too."

The technician turned around and asked.

"So... You're the famous Oma Desala, eh?"

"That I am."

The technician smiled, then looked at Rostrum and Hammond.

"And I suppose that you... Guys are going to be our dance partners in the game of the millennium?"

"That's one way of putting it." Replied Hammond.

"We have rigged the entire complex with high explosives in case these Guald's show up. I really hope they don't. There's no chance we are going to be able to replicate the gems or the salamander and as dangerous as it might be... If a bunch of evil aliens show up. I think I'd take the chance of trying to chip out those gems before we escape."

"What's your name?" Asked Voss.

"Inanna Capon... and before you ask, yes, I'm Admiral Capon's niece. I was supposed to have a nice cushy job working at a power plant. But then you and your cousin and these... Earthlings show up and inform me that I'm heading up this little project."

She looked out over the machinery and said, "I really don't know if I should thank you or scream at you. I suppose it's a good thing that you guys took awhile to get here. Every day I find more wonders to counterbalance the horrors."

She clapped her hands and asked.

"So! Zero Point Modules. Where do we find more of these things?"

Oma explained. "In the Pegasus Galaxy there's a few of them. But they are all dead or almost dead. If we have a way of charging them that solves a lot of problems. In this galaxy... One is under the ice of Antartica on Earth, that one is also almost dead. One is in the hands of the Goa'auld Cammilus. And another is on a planet called Paclarush Taonas. But we are going to need a ship to go there. The gate is buried. The planet is lost in fire."

Rostrum chuckled and said, "well, of those it sounds like the one in Antartica would be the easiest one to get."

"With two fully charged modules we can bring the almost dead Atlantis modules back here to be charged. Once they are charged we send them back to Atlantis. Fly the city back here and... Well."

Hammond laughed and said, "you make it sound so easy."

"It will be easy... Provided we don't tip off the bad guys. As far as the Wraith are concerned Atlantis is lost. We should be able to sneak the city out from under their noses."

Hammond observed, "the lost city of Atlantis. Boy... Returning that to Earth..."

"It should provide us with everything we need to defeat the Goa'auld, the Wraith. And perhaps even the Ori." Replied Oma.

"Now you make that sound so easy. Entire galaxies full of bad guys and defeating them sounds as easy as accumulating the right weapons." Said Rostrum.

"Ah, but it's not just about weapons..."

Voss put her arms around Oma and Hammond.

"It's about the alliance. It's about working together. It's about learning things together that we can't learn on our own."


	10. The fall of the Tollan and the rise of Egeria.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oma speaks to the Tollan. 
> 
> The Tok'ra are informed of the fate of their queen. 
> 
> And we finally catch up to Bra'tac and Teal'c.

"And so that's the entire dishonorable story of the fall of the Tollan. Destruction of government records, bartered Trinium and the assassination of Counselor Omoc. You can take it or leave it but let's be honest. Someday some Goa'auld is going to develop better shields for their ships and when that day comes that Goa'auld is going to do to you exactly what Anubis did to you in that other timeline. Quetzalcoatal is not a demanding or vengeful entity but he saved you in your hour of need. Don't you think that it would be nice to return the favor to others?"

The Aemonian stadium full of Tollan refugees looked at Oma anxiously.

As she collected her notes and prepared to step down from the podium she added. "Oh, and one more thing. I know that the Tok'ra use Tollan sub space communication devices. So wether you decide to help us or not. That's fine, but I would like to deliver a message to the Tok'ra. Message reads as follows. "I would like to speak to Saroosh, Egeria is still alive. She is on a planet called Pangar. I don't have an address but it lies in contested territory between Ra's and another Goa'auld. If you would like to know who the other Goa'auld was, then meet us at Heliopolis, thank you."

Oma collected her things and stepped down off the podium as the assembled Tollan began talking amongst themselves.

Voss and Ballard were waiting for Oma in a car parked nearby. As they drove to the Aemonian gate facility Ballard asked.

"So, do you think you got through to them?"

"Oh I got through to them. The question is if they are going to do anything about it."

"Probably not. We're pretty sure that they know that we are copying their ion cannons. They aren't going to be happy about that and are probably going to vote to maintain neutrality just to spite us." Said Voss.

"Well either way, we fulfilled our deal with Quetzalcoatal. So, are we go for the next operation?"

"Yes, everything has been arranged and we are ready to begin as soon as we get back."

Once they got to the Aemon gate facility an operation commenced. The Stargate was overcharged with electrical energy and a probe with a variety of powerful tracking devices was sent through to Earth's coordinates. As the probe went through a US navy reconnoissance plane flying over Antartica picked up the tracking devices and an expedition was mounted from McMurdo Base. By the time Oma, Voss and Ballard made it back to Earth. The second Stargate was in the Navy's possession.

* * *

Going over the data that had been hacked from Ra's ship a variety of names in the star charts stood out to Oma.

One in particular had to be examined.

SG1 exited the gate on Chulak.

They ran for the tree line as fast as they could. Once there they looked over their equipment one more time and started walking towards the house that they suspected belonged to the First Prime of the System Lord Apophis.

Once they had the house in sight they sat there and waited.

"So, any idea when this guy gets home?" Asked Oma.

"No clue, we just have to wait." Said Rostrum.

They waited.

A midsummer night on Chulak was just warm enough to be tolerable with Aemonian sleeping bags.

SG1 waited.

And waited.

Several days went by.

They started running low on food. They were able to replenish their water from a nearby stream. But after days of waiting Rostrum was just about to pull the plug when a pair of men came walking up the path. They both had the gold emblems of First Prime's.

"What about the other guy?" Asked Voss.

"I think the other guy is Master Bra'tac." Explained Oma.

"But we can't be sure." Said Rostrum.

"Hey, if we want a Jaffa rebellion we are going to need more than one Jaffa. Let's do this." Stated Hammond.

SG1 broke cover and walked towards the two Jaffa.

Teal'c and Bra'tac stopped and asked what was going on.

SG1 explained things to them as well as they could. Bra'tac and Teal'c listened and looked at the photo of Teal'c in an Air Force uniform.

Once everything was explained Oma bowed to them and said, "well, we have said our piece. Now we leave it up to you."

Bra'tac raised his hand and asked, "you would be willing to help us fight for the freedom of all Jaffa?"

"Of course."

Bra'tac looked at Teal'c and said, "Teal'c... You can't leave... You are first prime you would be missed. But I'm retired, no one will notice or care if I leave for a few days. I will go with them."

Teal'c bowed and SG1 returned to Earth with Master Bra'tac.

* * *

At Heliopolis the navy was winding down operations.

They had already completed the careful removal and reconstruction of the meeting room and the pedestal inside to a secure facility on Earth. Rickover and everyone else at NAVSEA08 had been positively glowing when they saw the depictions of super heavy elements.

The Seabees responsible for moving the device were almost all gone except a few guys who were tidying up.

The gate came online. The Seabees ran and grabbed their weapons and prepared for whatever unscheduled thing was coming through.

An older woman stepped through and said. "My name is Selmak of the Tok'ra. We got your message. Where is Egeria?!"

A few hours later Oma and Lieutenant Carter arrived to meet Selmak. Who was understandably impatient.

"You said Pangar was disputed territory between Ra and another Goa'auld. Who was it?"

"Shak'ran. With your knowledge of the Goa'auld that should give you everything you need to know to come up with a list of likely candidates."

Selmak sighed in relief and said, "thank you. Now if you don't mind..."

"Wait, there's one other thing that I need to tell you before you go. This is Jacob Carter and in the other timeline he became your next host."

Jacob looked at Oma and said, "I thought we weren't going to tell her that!?"

"Sorry, I couldn't resist." Oma said with a smile.

Selmak turned around and stared at him for a little while.

"You... Don't like us. I can see it all over your face."

"I'm told I was dying of cancer. I didn't have much of a choice, and I know it's not going to happen in this timeline but... Thank you. Oma tells me that I had some serious issues with my family that you helped me resolve."

Selmak looked at him closely and smiled.

"I can't promise you that we will have an alliance. But if Egeria really is alive we will definitely talk again."

Oma said, "oh, on that subject."

She pulled out a box.

"Books detailing Earth's language, culture and history. There's also a radio in there. All you need to do is dial Earth's Stargate address and talk to us through that if you want to talk more."

Selmak took the box and said, "thank you. Now if you don't mind..."

"Ah, slight problem there." Said one of the Seabees.

They pointed out the damage to the DHD and said, "we rigged the power source to the gate directly but we have to dial manually. If you will provide us an address then we can dial it for you. But it's going to take awhile."


	11. Hustler.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conversations on the fusion of Aemonian and Earthling technologies. 
> 
> Featuring President Nixon!

Johanna Entannil completed her checks of the decommissioned B58's.

She whistled in amazement.

She had found some pretty spectacular things on other planets. Somehow this was the topper, at least so far.

"So... Can you use these aircraft?" Asked General Ryan.

"Were going to have to make some modifications, obviously. But... Yeah, we can use these. It's incredible, I mean, the expenditure of resources to build a fleet of these Hustlers. It's like going to war with dozens of rifle magazines loaded with solid silver bullets. We will have to install reaction control motors, different engines, more armor, thermal coatings and once we have the bugs worked out, shields and our weapons but you... You guys have created something just perfect to be adapted into a long range spacegoing recon bomber. And you're retiring these aircraft?"

"Too expensive to operate, no suitable targets. Well... There's the Russians but they have pretty well layered aerial defenses against just this sort of thing." Replied the general.

"I don't believe you. Based on what I've read these bombers would be too fast for their fighters to catch."

"Okay, then they were just too expensive. Speaking of which, will your modifications make these things cheaper to operate?"

"Oh yes, way cheaper. We will install a reactor here. Put engine pods here and here. Two pods instead of four and when we get enough trinium to make lightweight Ion cannons we can mount them to fit on the centerline where the bomb pod used to go."

"You make it sound so easy."

"Yeah, it won't be for the fabrication bots. They are going to have to do some major internal reconfiguration to make these suitable for space combat. But these are a much more realistic proposal than bolting engines to sub hulls like Rickover wants to do."

Meanwhile at Cape Canaveral Delin Qualitich, the grand dame of Aemonian rocket technology examined a Saturn 5.

She sang to it. In a deep and resounding voice as she wandered around the enormous rocket. After hours of running over it with her hands and sensors she finally asked, "you people really fly this thing to your moon?"

"Yes." Said Rickover.

"This... I don't even have words for this. This is such an unbelievable use of resources. I imagine you have a successor craft on the drawing board?"

"Yes, of course."

Rickover snapped his fingers and an underling produced sketches of the Space Shuttle. Delin looked it over and said. "I'm about to say something that I know you've heard before but I'm going to say it anyway."

"Cancel it?" Rickover asked.

"Cancel it, there are several design flaws, the design is too asymmetric, too small, too limited and you're going to be playing Russian roulette every time you fly this thing because chunks of this external foam tank will shed onto the thermal ties. With what you have this... Saturn 5 has much more development potential. This Shuttle proposal is only going to be partly reusable. We can make this fully reusable."

"Reusable? You... Can make a reusable Saturn 5!?" Asked Rickover.

"Yeah, just give me a couple months to detail the design changes. We can start right now with a sounding rocket that I can incorporate features into to make it reusable. If I can make a reusable sounding rocket will you be willing to try something bigger?"

Rickover nodded.

"Okay, take me to your drafting table."

As good as her word, Doctor Qualitich had a working prototype of a methane powered sounding rocket which could fly back to a landing on Earth flying within seven months. She showed engineers from Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed the relatively simple mechanical changes they had to make to make a reusable rocket.

Production began on what became known as the Neptune One booster. And work also began on what would become the Neptune One's second stage.

* * *

President Nixon examined the documents.

"Alien technologies, alien life, Stargates, zero point energy and you're telling me that the answer to the energy crisis is something we already had!?"

"Well, yes and no. We have a prototype molten salt reactor running at Oak Ridge. But the technology was unproven. The Aemonians have been operating these molten salt reactors for centuries. Their designs are far more sophisticated." Explained Rickover.

"And they have fusion reactors too. Why don't we make those?"

"Mr President, it's going to be decades until we have the technology to build a power generating fusion reactor, even with Aemonian help. These MSR's can be built with existing technology, right now."

"And this... Naquada stuff is off the table?"

"For the moment. We can come up with cover stories that the MSR tech is derived from our own work. There's no way we can explain alien elements. Even if we could get enough of it to power the country. Which we can't." Explained Rickover. 

Admiral Capon just sat in the Oval Office with a scowl on her face. The president asked, "you've been awfully quiet over there. Don't you have anything to say?"

"No... the only reason why I came here was because Hyman insisted. I really don't have anything to say to you."

"Why not?"

"Frankly, mister Nixon. By my standards, you are a madman."

"A madman?"

"Yes, you have a variety of physical ailments, a sickness that I've never..."

"Philo!" Insisted Rickover.

"No, let her speak. You say I'm sick, I admit that I'm not in the best of health. Do you have medicine that can cure me?"

"I might. But you would have to come to our planet to accomplish this."

Nixon smiled, looked at Rickover and said. "Okay, I suppose I can arrange a trip out to Idaho. I spend a few hours on your planet. You run me through your medical devices. As far as everyone is concerned I just spent some time looking at our new reactors... one is the wiser."

"You're kidding?!" Asked Rickover.

"Not at all." Replied the president.

"You do remember that to gain their trust I had to ingest a cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs?" 

"Yeah... And did you die or turn into a communist? If that's the nature of treatment then that's the nature of treatment." Replied the president. "How soon can you begin construction of these molten salt reactors?"

"We already have three prototypes under construction at INL. With existing U233 stockpiles from the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment we could have a dozen reactors online within six months."

"And these reactors have the ability to make gasoline out of air pollution?"

"Yes."

"Then it's settled."

The president got up and offered his hand to Admiral Capon.

"Do we have a deal?"

Capon stood up and said, "under one condition. Fire your National Security Advisor."

"Fire Kissinger? why?"

"Because while I don't trust you I trust him even less. He presence is unacceptable to my government to conduct further negotiations."

Nixon looked at Rickover who just said. "Hey don't look at me... But... I think I see where they are coming from."

"I'll take it under advisement. But for now... Do we have a deal?"

"For now... Yes."

Capon shook his hand and got somewhat grossed out by the amount of sweat. As she wiped her hand off with a napkin she said. "Arrange your trip to Aemon as soon as you can Mr President. I think we both know that this is not normal."

Nixon shrugged his shoulders and said, "okay, since we have the civilian stuff out of the way. Let's talk weaponry."

Rickover reached into a different folder and pulled out some pictures of an aircraft with folded wings being passed through the Stargate.

"The Aemonian's have generously provided us with twenty examples of their last generation of jet turbine powered fighters. By their standards these planes are comically obsolete but they are far more advanced than anything in current service or even advanced prototypes like the F15 and F14. They call this the Type 79 Barracuda. We will be conducting carrier ops with these in a couple months to see if our technologies and their technologies can 'play nice' with each other and teach our maintainers how to work on more advanced fighters. As a follow on to the Barracuda we have come up with this."

"A space fighter?!" Asked Nixon, nearly beaming.

"Not exactly." Replied Admiral Capon as she brought out some sketches.

"We call it the Raven. Fifty five meters long by ten meters wide. An ion cannon gives it the firepower to take out a Goau'auld ship. It's missiles and CIWS give her the ability to overwhelm a squadron of fighters. With a hyperdrive it can get out of dodge when faced with overwhelming odds. It's just crude enough for the hulls to be built in US Navy yards. It can be launched into orbit on a Saturn 5. Four of these stationed in orbit should be able to defend the planet against a Goau'auld incursion. Beyond defense..."

Rickover took out a variety of sketches and designs.

"We're still working on most of these. Space going cruisers, battleships. But one ship type we can build is a 'Raven Carrier'. The carrier vessel will be configured like an extremely large rotary weapons mount in a bomber. The first carrier vessel is already in production on Aemon. It will only have mounts for two Ravens. Our production carrier will be configured to carry six. The carrier vessel will have similar weapons to the Raven. And since it is a larger ship, it will be fitted with shielding that we cannot fit onto individual Raven class gunboats with available technology."

"We can build this? With our technology?" Asked the president.

"Well, we aren't sure yet. The Aemonians have already begun production of their prototype. They estimate that they will have it up and flying within a month. But they would prefer to focus on Ion Cannon and fusion reactor production and let us focus on hulls. Once they have their prototype we will be able to learn things we can't learn any other way and work the bugs out."

As Nixon looked over the sketches he chuckled and said. "The Russians aren't going to be happy when they find out about this."

"When they find out about it. Would you rather have none of these when that happens or enough of them to shoot down a swarm of incoming ballistic missiles?"

"This has that capability?"

"With CWIS and Aemonian tracking systems. I estimate seven could completely defeat a Russian first strike. But the Russian's aren't the ones we have to worry about!"

The president stretched out and asked one more question.

"You consider me a madman. But you came here to speak to me, why?"

"Because I was ordered to by my government. We barely trust Rickover and we don't trust you. But my government came to the conclusion that the time had come to deal with you directly."

"And now that we are dealing directly. You're offering me everything I could ever ask for."

"Yeah well... You're a creepy, disgusting hypocrite. But you're not as bad as the Goa'auld... Barely. You have already made a number of disastrous decisions. But it's not too late for you."

Nixon looked out the window and quietly said.

"Okay, fine, permission granted. Build your Raven's. I'll see you on Aemon at my earliest opportunity, Admiral."

* * *

Upon the Admirals return to Aemon they were met with some very good news. Their first ion canon prototype was ready for its first test firing. It had taken a sizable portion of the Aemonian Navy budget to build this thing. Capon figured that it had cost them the equivalent of fifteen ballistic missiles worth of resources. But now that the first one had been created all the ones to follow would get easier to make with the lessons of this one. It was big and crude as fuck. But it was just small enough to be mounted in a submarine.

Aemon's Space fleet was small and did not have hyper-drives. But their ships were generations more sophisticated than what the Earthlings had. But even their best space ships couldn't carry this monstrosity. 

"Target will be in sight in ten minutes."

Capon looked anxiously through her binoculars at the weapon. In a little over ten minutes an orbiting spaceship in a very low orbit would go overhead. Hopefully it would center punch the target spaceship with enough energy to punch through its shields and the wreckage would fall into the atmosphere to burn up harmlessly.

Or perhaps the thing would malfunction and explode with considerable force.

Or perhaps the ion ball would hit something it wasn't supposed to.

Or perhaps...

Scenarios raced through her mind.

Eight months ago her job had consisted of little more than custodial duties. Now she was at the head of preparations for a war with entities that considered themselves gods and she was about to fire her God killer.

She looked over at Rickover and thought. "How can he be so fucking calm!?"

"Target in sight. Preparing for shot. All systems green, we have good track. Firing in five, four, three, two... One."

Though wearing goggles, Admiral Capon looked away from the cannon as it fired.

"Tracking, on target... Direct hit! Good kill!"

Exclamations of relief cascaded through the room.

Admiral Capon hung her head in relief and said, "okay... It didn't blow up. But this is still going to take years of work to make this science experiment into a usable weapons system."

"Well, hopefully we have the time."

"Hopefully, it sure is comforting to know that the Goa'auld aren't aware of our tinkering yet."

"Yet... We will be ready for them when they come."

Capon shook her head and replied "When they come... So, before they come all we have to do is build a fleet of badass space going warships and bring your world into technological parity to Aemon. How long is that going to take?"

"Between fear of the Russians and OPEC? Probably not long at all. But it's going to take a lot of work."

"Yeah well... Good thing we have some shortcuts."

"You want more armband volunteers?"

"Yeah, but you keep them this time. And try to make the next few a little less obese than the first one."

"This is a weird arrangement we have worked out." Said Rickover.

"Yeah, but it gets results... Doesn't it?"

Admiral Capon looked at the recording of a large, shielded, derelict space station burning to bits as it tumbled through the upper thermosphere of Aemon.


	12. Healing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mad dash begins around the world to search for lost technologies described by Oma Desala and the survival of Aemonain civilization becomes much more likely.

Rickover had gone over the Abydos ZPM with his own equipment.

He had learned... A few things. But this device was like nothing he had ever seen. Nothing he had ever imagined.

After the discovery of the second Stargate he had sent navy personnel to conduct the most thorough survey possible of the ice field nearby and an anomaly had been found. A dome under the ice.

Using a device specially built for the job of punching though the ice which heated it into a liquid and drained the resulting water away a tunnel was bored through the ice to the dome below wherein they found the Ancient Antarctic outpost and its ZPM.

When the Antarctic ZPM was brought to him he checked it against the one that had been found on Abydos. It appeared to be at a smidgeon over one percent of its power capability while the one found on Abydos was at nearly 75%.

Rickover wanted the city of Atlantis. But this wasn't going to get it.

So he took the ZPM's to Aemon and had Capon and her people look over the devices.

They were able to learn a little more about the modules than he had. But they came to the same conclusion. That there was no way to charge them besides what had become know as the Salamander Device. Which was now estimated to be partly operational within eight months.

The day after getting this news a veritable wave of NAVSEA08 staff came pouring out of the gate on that planet to get the rest of the ancient device operational.

* * *

Johanna Entannil was in paradise.

Harvard University's biological research facilities were fairly crude by her standards. But what lied inside was research material beyond her wildest fantasies.

Aemonian human genetic stock was never all that diverse. And the extinction of the human Y chromosome on that planet hadn't helped anything. In order to stave off genetic stagnation some rather... Undesirable measures had to be taken.

Even with simplified adoption, this led to problems. The divorce rate on Aemon was absurd and even with advanced computers and genetic engineering the risk of children with birth defects was alarmingly high.

The lessons learned from Miss Frankel had already been applied. There were no less than a dozen women on Aemon who were pregnant with male babies.

But what Doctor Entannil was finding at Harvard was the key to fixing everything.

She took a cryogenically preserved sample of blood from what was fast becoming her favorite variety of the human species. A Khoisan tribeswoman. The variety and complexity of Khoisan DNA was like nothing she had ever seen. Genetically speaking if the Aemonians were a poorly maintained motel swimming pool then the Khoisan were the Atlantic Ocean.

Every time Johanna examined a sample she cloned it and entered it into her computers. She hadn't gotten the paperwork needed to take samples back to Aemon yet. But data was okay.

All this made her so happy that she almost didn't care about the fact that she was under guard by the navy 24/7. The rotating staff of SEALS's that Rickover had assigned to keep an eye on her were a serious bunch. Handsome, but no fun at all. They broached no rule violations whatsoever.

As much fun as she was having examining DNA, she really did want to sample the nightlife on Earth.

But getting away from her babysitters was impossible without resorting to dirty tricks, and it was still too early in the game for that.

So Johanna studied quietly. Doing all she could to not draw attention to herself as she contemplated the possibilities.

As incredible as the human DNA collected here was she still knew that somewhere out there was a planet with a nation called Kelowna. Which for some reason, possibly related to deposits of wacky naquada. Was host to humans with the ability to learn and disperse knowledge even faster than she could.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Honduran jungle.

"I tell you, I've been over this area five times! There's nothing here!" Said Ballard.

"Oh ye of little faith." Replied Oma as she pulled the trigger on the device sending a sonic blast into the ground.

"Large void, right over there." Rostrum said as he operated a ground penetrating radar device.

After five minutes with shovels, the tunnel to Telchak's hiding place was found.

Oma and Carter put on their oxygen bottles and dropped into the bunker. As expected, following a loud crashing noise the bunker rapidly filled with water.

Oma leapt out of the water with the device.

Jacob followed her up and exhaled in relief.

Voss and Ballard examined the device. Voss declared it. "Interesting, very interesting. But just to be safe..."

She placed it in a lead lined lockbox before they left the area.


	13. The USS Bad Idea.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two admirals whose job it is to design ships sit down and discuss what will become the flagships of their new fleets. 
> 
> Much is argued about.

"Oh come on, the design is perfectly functional." Said Rickover. 

"Functional... That's one way to put it. Crude, uncomfortable and... Yep, still a bad idea. Not a particularly original design either. I mean, this is basically a Los Angeles class hull modified for space flight with a cluster of our engines strapped to it. It would be tough. And utterly impractical." Said Capon. 

"We need warships capable of carrying Ion Cannons and this is the fastest way to get there. With the lessons we learn from this design we will be able to build something better. But if you want my yards to make hulls for your weapons this is how we're going to have to do it." 

"I don't know, this... You know the more I think about it the more I think that perhaps we should rethink this whole arrangement. How about we renegotiate? You handle raw resources and we will handle all ship construction?" 

"That's not a deal that we can undo at this point. Not with either of our governments." 

"So my options are either to resign or... You know what, I'm old, I think I might..." 

"Hey, oh! Who said you could resign?" 

"I can and you know what... I might do it right now. If you think you can force me to play along with this." 

"Okay, fine! What design compromises would you like to suggest?" 

"Compromises? He calls them compromises! Okay, first of all this thing needs way better crew carriage. You're going to need to make certain things taller, wider and easier to work on. Which is going to mean even more technology transfers. No Aemonian military assessor would take delivery of this ship. She would put a black mark against the record of any company that delivered a vessel with so many design flaws that seem to be aimed at killing or injuring the crew!" Roared Capon. 

"Ok, so, you want to go back to the drawing board again?" 

"No, because I have a design of my own and believe it or not..." 

She unfurled a blueprint. 

"I believe this design can be produced and maintained even with your very crudest equipment. A design which would pass muster with an Aemonian Navy inspector... Just barely, I think... I hope. Either way... This is my design and if you don't want me to finish mailing my letter of resignation right now you're going to have to build it." 

Rickover looked at the blueprints. 

She spoke his language. She spoke his language better than anyone else in the galaxy. Rickover tried to hide his amazement as he blurted out. "Alright... Fine! I suppose I owe you this much. As things are the US is going to benefit... Greatly from this. You're sure my people can build this?" 

"Positively, Hyman... Positively.."

"Okay, I have a few yards where this could be built. We build four of these to start with at Electric Boat, San Diego and two in your Scorpio Yards. And one of these. Heck, we could even send copies to Tollana. See if they want to jump in." 

"The Tollan? They would probably laugh at us. But if you want to take it out of your resources you can go right ahead and build the USS Bad Idea. I'm going to have to insist that resources on this world go towards my design. Bad Idea is probably going to be a complete misfit, probably even a crew killer. If you want those deaths on your conscience... Oh right, I forgot who I was talking to." 

Admiral Capon backed away from the drafting table and pulled a cigar out of a box in her desk. 

"Care for one?" She offered. 

"Judging by the smell, no and I'd rather you not light that where you can blow the smoke in my face." 

"Ah it's fine. No chance of popping positive on one of your crude ass drug tests from secondhand smoke. Those tests don't actually test for this kind of drug but the proteins that this drug creates. You would need a continuous, massive dose for that." 

She lit the cigar and opened a window. 

"Besides, of all the medicines on Aemon or Earth this is the only thing that seems to stop the dozen or so things that are slowly killing me. You Earthlings were dumber than a box of rocks to outlaw this stuff. Reefer madness... Ha! That you people fall for that. You outlaw this but provide subsidies to companies making products that make your people sicker?" 

She blew the smoke out the window. 

"You Earthlings are nuts. Ever since you showed up its just been one endless party on Aemon and the colonies. Kinda makes up for the fact that there's a bunch of aliens out there that want to kick out butts. But being able to kick their butts before they even know we're a threat... That's going to be really sweet... And a fuckton of work." 

Rickover sat down and asked. "Do you really think you're better than us?" 

"As a society? No... No our domestic violence rates make a lie out of that belief. Technologically? We kick your butts. As a civilization?" 

She rolled the cigar slowly in her fingers 

"I've been thinking about one of the things Oma told us. The Asgard were unable to ascend because they... Adopted cloning as a kind of substitute immortality. We don't do that here, we don't have the tech to transfer consciousness to a new body, but we do depend on cloning to keep us going." 

She took another puff. 

"So what's the message here? That the universe extracts a toll for using too much cloning technology? Who's right and who's wrong? Ultimately I suppose it all comes down to who is alive and who is dead." 

She put the cigar down in an ashtray. 

"Don't worry, you don't have to go straight back to your people. Consider this an invitation to stay in Aemon for a little while longer. At least until the smell goes away. So tell me, the USS Bad Idea, whatchu gonna call it? The class name I'm thinking for my boat is... Ahem. Battleship Denouement. Hull number zero zero one. What were you thinking?" 

"There are a few names I could give her. And a few names I can't. But I think... Seeing as we have just decommissioned one... The US Navy Space Battleship Hornet. Hull number zero zero... Two." 

"Hornet? Noice!"

She offered her fist for a pump, then retracted it and said. 

"But I still say it's the USS Bad Idea. But who knows. Perhaps crews will rush to serve on your... Enormous Bug." 

"Why do you do this? Act so childish? Smoke that stuff... I know you do things differently out here but you are still a military officer." 

"Because I'm very very very very old... Admiral Rickover. If I hadn't learned to carve out some exceptions to the military life. I'd have died years ago. And the military accommodates my exceptions because they can't get anyone else who can do my job. Trust me, they... Have... Tried." 

She picked up the cigar again and continued. 

"There's limits on how far we can press our medical technologies. It's one of the reason I'm smoking this stuff. It's having effects on my body that our scientists have never seen before. I'm old and despite our best efforts... even Aemonian's die. I intended to file my resignation letter three days before you showed up. Had it all written up, just had to put it in the filing chain. And then I get a phone call from my granddaughter saying that she's staring into a portal... Speaking to a man from another world who allegedly sounds exactly like me. So try not to be too horrified if I die on you all of a sudden."

Rickover coughed a little and asked, "so why do you stick around? Can't just be because of me." 

She leaned back in her chair and said, "no it's not you. Despite all our similarities, I really do hate working with you. Outside the subjects of nuclear physics and mechanical stuff. You're a loud mouthed, oblivious, obnoxious idiot who never knows when to shut the hell up! The only thing that makes this job worthwhile is the fact that Ive got my own staff. That almost makes it worthwhile to have to put up with your nonsense and your staff. Little indulgences like this... Get me the rest of the way. Both literally and figuratively. But you have to know that I'm... Trying to get you fired right now!" 

She burst out laughing. 

"Really?" Asked Rickover. 

"Yeah really! I wasn't kidding when I said that I hated working with you." 

"Great." 

"Oh come on... Loosen up a little, for once in your life."

"I don't loosen." 

She absentmindedly smiled as she melted into her couch and asked. "What if you have to? Loosen fittings to get a pipe out for replacement?" 

"Then I use the proper tool." 

"Pft! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!" 

"Listen, can I take these plans and go?" 

"Uh, no, not just yet. Here..." 

She grabbed a thumb drive and tossed it at Rickover. 

"Plans for the Denouement are in there and you can have my paper copies. Leave your design for the Hornet here. Who knows, perhaps your design will turn out to be needed somewhere... Somehow... By someone. But you got to know that if it's built it will be a... Misfit. Hard to source parts for." 

Rickover looked over the plans one last time and said. 

"Perhaps."


	14. Showoff.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Lockheed corporation is shown actual alien technology. 
> 
> Egeria is rescued.

The team from Gherrik Aerospace looked anxiously around at their counterparts from the Lockheed Corporation. 

One in particular stood out. 

Gherrik's chief test pilot. A statuesque blonde a little over six feet tall. Hananria Gherrik. 

She sat down at a conference table and waited for someone she had requested to show up. Kelly Johnson. 

Johnson opened the door and said. 

"Okay, fine, you got me. Now show me this little hot rod of yours!" 

She followed him outside with a smug smile on her face. 

"Straight out of Idaho. After a brief detour to show the boys at Fallon what for... I present to you..." 

The Barracuda went into a vertical climb... A terrifyingly short distance from Johnson's... Head. 

After some other aerobatic maneuvers that no production fighter could hope to replicate. The Type 79 came in for a perfect landing at the Hawthorne facilities main runway. 

"We brought two through the Stargate, the other one is on its way to Washington, D.C. The Barracuda is an antique by our standards. But I think we can teach you guys a few things." 

The plane taxied in. 

Hammond got out of the cockpit. Still panting from the workout he had insisted on giving the Skunkworks. 

The engine was brought to cold shutdown. 

Auxiliary power was plugged in. 

Hanaria invited their entire corporation to take a look, exclaiming. 

"Oh, do be careful! That things still got stealth coatings on it." 

Johnson was looking at the engine. 

"This engine... How many pounds of thrust can it put out?" Johnson asked. 

"On a good day? Around sixty thousand with afterburner."

Johnson noticed something. 

"This nozzle... It rotates... Down?" 

"Yeah." 

"So you're putting... This thing is VTOL?" 

"STOVL is preferred... But... Open up the lift fan assembly!" 

Hammond pressed the relevant button. 

The middle of the airplane opened up. 

Johnson walked up to the cockpit. He said to Hammond, "out, now!" 

Hammond put up his hands and got out. 

Hammond stopped and said. "Now I know what you're thinking... You're thinking that you want to get in that cockpit right now. And I'm just going to say... If you do..." 

He looked at Hanaria... Who was giggling uncontrollably. 

"Go the the bathroom first... In fact, do a whole nitrogen purge from your system. This thing... Is going to be a rather intense demonstration." 

"He's not kidding?" Johnson asked Hammond 

"Nope... Go through the procedure for an SR71 ride." Hammond replied. 

Johnson did so. All the while letting his technicians study the plane as it was refueled. 

He was put in a full pressure suit and walked to the Barracuda. 

"Okay, now... We're going to be flying this from the ground like a drone. You will have limited control of the controls. But I can lock you out at my discretion. Have fun... Mr Johnson." Explained Hanaria.

The Barracuda began its taxi run. 

The engineers were allowed to monitor the data stream from the aircraft. 

"Do you want a soundtrack for this mission? Mr Johnson?" 

"I want to hear nothing but radio communications and see... Oh good lord, I can see right through me." 

"Hm, you think that's weird. Just wait till the afterburner comes on. At your discretion." 

"Is this takeoff going to use the lift fan?" 

"Negative. Standard long runway takeoff. Seeing as how we are on an absurdly long runway and you have provided chase planes." 

"A4 Skyhawks. Some of the best in the business." 

"Yeah... And an F4. Okay, here we go..." 

Liftoff was smooth. The plane then accelerated to a speed which generated a force of three Gs. 

The Barracuda went up like a champagne cork. Despite its massive weight in fuel. 

In a series of knife edge, high speed maneuvers... In an overly dramatic close quarters battle between the Tomcat, the Phantom and the Skyhawk... all at the same time. After about a hundred high G maneuvers. Each getting closer and closer to the Barracuda using its unique... Knock it off strategy of flying so close to an opponent as to induce turbulence. The test pilots from the Grumman, McDonnell Douglas and Northrop corporations were suitably impressed. 

As the Barracuda taxied back to its launch point, Hanaria got a crane like device ready... Just in case. 

Johnson was able to get out of the plane unassisted. But as soon as he got out he started giving the signal that he wanted out of the suit, right now.

He was suffering visible symptoms of G-lock. 

He was taken away on a gurney. 

Hanaria took off her goggles and said. "Well don't look at me... You guys were the ones who wanted to play it so rough on the first date." 

As she walked away she added. "And if your doctors can't fix him... Ours can." 

One by one, test pilots from various corporations were brought in. 

And one by one, their best... Fell before the Barracuda. 

Even the very best of the best. A brief lock on was obtained on an SR71. 

A cloaked scout ship orbited the planet Pangar. 

They had been listening to the planets crude radio transmissions for weeks. 

Aboard were the Tok'ra operatives Korra and Selmak. 

Following a detailed study of the culture of Pangar Selmak ringed down to the surface. Near an ongoing archeological dig which was throwing up some anomalous energy readings. 

Selmak adopted the identity of a news reporter as she snuck around the site. She asked plenty of questions and got plenty of answers from the locals. 

They were about to try to unseal what the inscriptions claimed to be the tomb of the greatest enemy the gods had ever known. 

The night before Selmak snuck into the dig site and used her extensive knowledge of Goa'uld architecture to get into the tomb. 

Inside she found five canopic jars on a pedestal. Two of the jars had been cracked at some point. The symbiotes inside those were long dead. One of the jars was big enough to hold a Goa'uld queen. 

Selmak grabbed the large jar and the two intact smaller ones. Put them in a secure container and began crawling out of the dig site. 

As she came out of the tunnels she thought she was home free. But a security guard saw her and shouted. "Thief!" 

She ran to a nearby ring platform and made her escape. Bullets bouncing off the rings as she was brought up to the scout ship in orbit. 

"Got her?" Asked Korra. 

"Got her and two other canopic jars. Miss Desala wasn't lying. Everything was just like how she said it was." 

Tests were done. 

The DNA profile of the queen matched Egeria perfectly. 

The other two jars contained minor Goa'uld's who had run afoul of Ra. They were put in a deep dark hole in Tok'ra headquarters while Egeria was placed in the body of a young woman who was dying of cancer. 

Once the blending was complete Egeria breathed for the first time in thousands of years. 

The first thing she saw was her oldest child. 

"Selmak... You... You found me! How?" 

"We had help. An ancient named Oma who got displaced in time told us where you were. We had no idea you were still alive." 

"Well... I was. I am... I mean... Wow, it's good to be out of that jar." 

She noticed a group of other Tok'ra just outside the room and said. "Come in, come in, we have so much to talk about!"


	15. Rhea, Quetzalcoatal and Richard.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Aemonians trust Rickover and the navy... Barely. They don't trust the US government. 
> 
> President Nixon comes before the Aemonians, desperate to maintain the alliance. 
> 
> The Aemonian's decide to put him through their most rigorous test.

The address of Aemon was entered into the dialing computer. 

"Chevron three encoded."

Hammond was standing with President Nixon in the embarkation room. 

"Mister President I strongly recommend against this." 

"Interesting time to voice your concerns, Captain. Why? Your entire command structure has signed off on this mission, as have your teammates. What is your concern?" 

"Mister president... Look, you are a hypocrite. And despite all they have done for us there is nothing the Aemonian's hate more than hypocrites. If you step through that gate... You will come back but you will not be the same person." 

"I thought that was exactly the point? What... Do you think they are going to influence me? Torture me?" 

"No... Everything they do will be strictly above board." 

"Chevron seven is locked!" 

As the gate opened the president walked up to it and traced his fingers across the event horizon for a moment and chuckled. He waved goodbye to Hammond and stepped through followed by his secret service detail. 

On the other side the Aemonian embarkation room was a lot like its counterpart on Earth. Only noticeably more sophisticated. Admiral Capon and her staff escorted Nixon and his secret service agents out of the bunker complex to a waiting limousine. 

They drove to a nearby Aemonian city. The limo was bulletproof and had blacked out windows. Either way the locals didn't pay them much attention. 

The president was taken to one of the finest hospitals on the planet and run through a battery of tests administered by the finest doctors that the Aemonian government could summon. 

Their prognosis was that the president had a variety of ailments and problems. All curable. 

Treatment began. 

The president was run through an intense regimen. A variety of drugs, supplements and other things were pumped through his system. His metabolism fluctuated, he got cold sweats. But afterwards he felt better than he had since he was a child. 

Then something happened that he wasn't expecting. 

As part of the treatment protocol he was taken out of the city. Far up into some mountains. His agents grew nervous but the Aemonian's insisted that everything was safe. 

He was led to a cabin on the edge of a beautiful mountain meadow. Where an old woman was waiting for him. She welcomed him inside, but insisted that his security detail leave. 

They reluctantly did so. 

In the cabin the old lady introduced herself while she made a cup of tea. 

"My name is Rhea Dakanst. And I'm told that your name is Richard Milhous Nixon." 

"It is... The Aemonian senate insisted very strongly that they would not sign our treaty of mutual defense until after I spoke to you. So... Who are you? What do you do out here? Everyone has been kinda evasive about what it is that you do." 

"What I do..? Well, I do a variety of things. But I suppose for you I'd be a guide. I will get to know you and you will get to know yourself." 

"Guide me through what?" 

"Your own mind. I'll try to explain, and after I'm done explaining you can chose to continue. Or you can turn around and walk out that door. There's still plenty of time to turn back. But there will be a point of no return. Just so you know." 

She drank a sip of tea and explained. 

"Hundreds of years ago when we lost our men our society went through a brutal psychological transition that matched our physical transition. Many of us lost the will to live. Everything that we had to define ourselves had been upset in some way or another. Most of the survivors simply threw themselves into their work. Creating more wealth and more technologies. Others went off into fantasy, indulging in magical thinking and/or spiritualism to solve their problems. And some went off into the deepest recesses of the mind looking for answers. One of those women who went off into their own minds was my great great great great grandmother. She went dove into the collective subconscious and brought back details of the secrets where mind and body meet. She was both scientist and mystic and what she found allowed some of us to endure the severing of our souls."

She took another sip. 

"What she found was a process. A strange... Uncomfortable process with many variations. Based on my understanding of your culture the closest analog I have found is a vision quest. But that's a crude metaphor, what I do is far more multilayered and inward looking than that. We aren't going to look for your spirit guide or anything external. This will be strictly within and everything you see will be a reflection of your psyche." 

Nixon chuckled and asked, "so what? Are you going to dose me with hallucinogens?" 

"Yes, but that's just for starters. You have massive weights around your own psyche. Your epigenetic profile is... The worst I've ever seen and your political views and policies..." 

She picked up a tablet computer and continued. 

"Someone must have warned you on our cultures views on hypocrisy before you came here." 

"Yes... An Air Force captain named Hammond." 

"Ah... George Hammond is a good man. We are lucky to have him as a friend and you are incredibly lucky to have him as an employee. Whatever it is you are paying him you should triple it." 

Nixon sat there in silence for a little while. 

"What's... What's happening?" 

Rhea shrugged her shoulders as golden energy began to spiral around her. 

"What the hell is this!? Have you dosed me?" 

"How could I have dosed you? You haven't had any tea and I've certainly not put anything in the air." 

The world began to dissolve into flowing golden energy. Nixon slammed his fist on the armrest if the chair he was sitting in and said. 

"Okay, I think we're done here." 

Nixon stood up and was about to walk out of the cabin. With his hand on the doorknob he asked. 

"If I leave... Is that going to end our alliance?" 

"Not immediately, but it will, as you say... Put a crimp in things." 

She started chuckling smugly. 

Nixon asked, "what the hell are you laughing about?" 

"It's about a question. Would you rather be loved? Or feared?" 

Nixon stared at her and said. "Feared." 

She chuckled some more and said, "well, how about being a punchline? If you walk out that door you will return to your current path. A path that will have no more to do with Aemon or anything involving the Stargate. That path will lead you to becoming nothing more than a joke. You will be remembered as the most despised and... hilariously incompetent presidents in American history." 

Nixon stomped towards her and growled. 

"How do you know!? Can you see the future?" 

"I don't have to. It's the way it is with people like you. Always grasping, always struggling, always wanting more. But never asking why, why do you want more? When will it be enough? Will it ever be enough?" 

She took out a deck of cards and started shuffling them. 

"The Goa'uld... That's what they are defined by. Their endless hunger for more. You came here for a variety of reasons. But you know that if you walk out that door I will have to deliver the conclusion that you are really not any better than the Goa'uld. At this point I'd conclude that you are worse. The Goa'uld are evil incarnate. But at least they aren't hypocrites." 

She laid out a bunch of cards. A tarot deck, but Nixon didn't recognize any of the symbols. 

"Someday the Goa'uld will be defeated. Perhaps not by us. Perhaps not by any of the races we have made alliances with. But they will be defeated and when that day comes a question will have to be answered..." 

She laid out the last card. Of a crumbling tower. 

"Having won the war, will they be able to win the peace? A new galaxy waits. But as to wether you will have a place in it... Remains to be seen." 

"Do you think you scare me!?" 

"Nope, I can hear the little voice in your head yammering away. That I'm nothing more than a fortune teller telling you a story so I can manipulate you into doing something that you don't want to do. But that's the interesting thing about the process." 

She collected the cards and put them back in their box. 

"Wether you do, or wether you don't. The process continues and what happens next..? It would be pointless to force you past this point. There is an undeniable darkness around your soul. I could kill you and all that would accomplish would be to shatter our alliance. A man named Spiro Agnew would take your place. And he would be even worse than you are." 

Nixon sat down and drank the entire cup of tea in one sip. 

"Cute, but there's nothing untoward in that tea. Since we're going ahead..." 

She reached for the teakettle and poured another cup. Then reached for a box. From which she pulled out three pills. One filled with an amber liquid. A white pill that looked like an aspirin and a multicolored pill. She took out a pocket watch and said, "take the amber first, then in a half an hour take the white one. If you are strong enough, in three hours, take this. These are medications specially tuned to your genetic profile." 

Nixon took the first pill and washed it down with some tea. 

Rhea smiled and went over to a device which started playing music. Very relaxing, pleasant sounding string music combined with the sound of rainfall. Then she took a pill of her own. She stretched out and said, "okay. First things first. You should probably change out of that expensive suit. You brought informal clothes?" 

"Yes." 

"Bathrooms over there. Go ahead and change." 

After he changed into a set of medical scrubs. Nixon sat down on a psychiatrists couch. Rhea sat down behind him and asked. "Tell me about yourself." 

He did so. He recounted events from his own life for a half an hour straight. She sat there and listened politely taking notes on her tablet computer. 

Then his neck stiffened up. 

"Time for the second pill." She said. 

Nixon reluctantly took the second pill. 

She stood up and turned away from him, moving her head around, loosening up her neck muscles. 

What happened next chilled Richard Milhous Nixon to his core. This fragile looking old woman began to stretch out her limbs beyond what seemed possible for a normal human being. Her fingers grew longer. The hunch in her back straightened out. She appeared to be growing into a much larger... Creature. She reminded him of a werewolf. 

"Oh, it's been awhile since I've worked with anything like you. This is going to be very... very interesting." 

He opened his mouth to scream for his security detail. But nothing came out. 

"Go ahead and walk out that door. You won't find anyone." Rhea said in an amused tone. 

He staggered to his feet. He felt like he was moving through water, or perhaps syrup. He made it to the door and found his security detail gone. 

He turned around. 

She now appeared to be eight feet tall and solid muscle. 

Nixon fell to his feet as she continued to crank her neck around. 

"Ah yes, this is going to be a very interesting... meal." 

She turned around. 

Her eyes blazed with a fire that terrified Nixon like nothing he had ever seen in his life. She walked over, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and said. "Look upon what your hypocrisy has wrought!" 

He screamed, lurched free and ran from the cabin. He dashed across the meadow. Faintly aware that on the other side of the meadow was a road that led to a city where he could find help. 

As he got to the tree line he heard a voice chanting, "hypocrite!" 

Then he looked up. 

The sky was full of B52 bombers. 

The bombs rained down and he continued to run. Trees exploded, fire and flame and shrapnel sprayed everywhere. He dove under a rotten log, held his ears and closed his eyes until the bombardment stopped. 

Then another unfamiliar voice spoke. 

"Kill a commie for mommy." 

He looked around. 

The forest was no longer destroyed. But it was no longer the temperate forest of Aemon. It was a Cambodian jungle. 

A different voice spoke. 

"Kill the invaders. 

"Kill a commie for mommy." 

He looked around and tried to find where the voices were coming from. 

"Kill the invaders." 

"Kill a commie for mommy." 

He began to hyperventilate. 

"Kill the invaders!" 

"Kill a commie for mommy!" 

"Whose mommy!? Why? Who am I? Where!?" 

He spotted movement. 

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!" 

He realized that he was holding an M16 and fired wildly at the movement. 

"Kill a commie for mommy." 

"Kill the invaders." 

He dropped the gun. 

He realized that he was no longer wearing scrubs. He was wearing the black pajamas of the Vietcong. 

"Kill a commie for mommy." 

He saw more movement and fired again. Only this time he was wielding an AK47. 

"Kill the invaders." 

He pulled the trigger until he was out of ammunition. 

He was hyperventilating. He could smell the jungle around him. All he could feel was fear. 

More movement. 

Only this time he could see what was moving. It was a tiger. He sighted in on it and pulled the trigger. 

The gun went click. 

The tiger roared at him. 

He dropped the gun and ran with the tiger hot on his heels. 

He ran straight off a cliff into a giant mud puddle. He exploded out of the mud and began running through his own life, in reverse. Every single one of his failures, his shortcomings, his embarrassments, his nightmares. They all came and feasted on him as he ran, devouring him piece by piece until he was nothing more than a torso dragging himself through the forest with his left arm. 

He cried as the tiger closed in on him. There was nothing he could do. 

The tiger came and sat down next to him and asked. "Well, did you? Did you kill a commie for mommy? Did you kill the invaders?" 

All he could do was weep. 

The tiger wandered around him in circles it said. "You're pointless, you're a rat. The architect of the downfall of the American empire and the people of Aemon have no time for a creature such as you." 

The tiger began gnawing on his stump of an arm. 

He was still crying, he stopped resisting the tiger. The tiger was about to chomp his neck but instead it sat down and said. "Well that was fun, but I suppose that's enough of that." 

The tiger morphed into a different form. That of a giant being of vapor and an eight foot tall woman. The woman said, "mind if I take it from here, Quetzalcoatal?" 

"Yeah I don't think he can take much more of that." Replied the vaporous being. 

The woman took a pill out of her pocket. It appeared to be made entirely of rainbow colored light. Nixon reached out and swallowed it. 

A gentle rain began to fall. Washing off the mud. He felt his body, there again. 

Quetzalcoatl took Nixon in his arms and carried him back to the cabin. Quetzalcoatal and Rhea sang to him of their respective civilizations and philosophy. A philosophy of understanding, a philosophy of mutual assistance and growth. One of critical thinking, science and the human spirit working together for the mutual benefit of all life. How all life was essentially the same. Physical incarnations of the universal mind. 

As this happened Nixon felt himself letting go of awful things. Things that had defined him his entire life. 

Near the end Quetzalcoatal argued for a completely new strategy to deal with global communism. And just to be sure, Rhea made a transcription of this so there would be no misinterpretations. 

Then Nixon slept. The deepest and most peaceful rest he had ever slept in his life. 

He woke with a start, drenched in sweat and incredibly thirsty. There was a glass of water next to his bed. He drained the pitcher and exhaled with satisfaction. 

He noticed Rhea, sitting in a rocking chair, smoking a pipe. 

"Ah, you're up. Your... Secret service men are outside. They will take you back to Earth. But take your time returning to your old life, try to do some writing while you're on your way back." 

There was a knock on the door as she handed him a book with Quetzalcoatal's proposed anti communist strategy. 

"Mister President, are you in there?" 

"Yeah, Carl... Everything's fine! I'll, be right with you, I've just got to... Change first." 

He went back in the bathroom to clean himself up. 

Nixon had a quiet ride back to the Stargate. Aemonian dignitaries were waiting to send him off including a few women who wanted to show him something special. Some of the first few male babies born on Aemon in centuries. Most of them were so young they didn't really notice him but one reached out his hand and gurgled at him. 

Nixon felt weird. He had been around babies for years. It was part of being a politician, let alone a parent. He couldn't describe the feeling he felt when he saw these babies. Other than it felt good. 

He stepped through the gate back to Earth. Rickover was waiting for him. 

"So, how was your trip, mr president?" 

"Educational... That's all I can say for now." 

Nixon walked out of the embarkation room. Hammond was standing next to Rickover and observed. "I can't believe he agreed to do that." 

"The president was a sick man. Sickness and desperation can lead a man to do desperate things." 

"I can't believe you let him do that." Said Hammond sternly. 

"Nature of the alliance. We have to be able to trust each other. Even when things get weird. Perhaps especially when things get weird. Besides, you got to air your concerns. This... Had to happen in order to begin the second stage." 

"We let an alien medicine woman and a Mayan God mess with the presidents mind!" Hammond almost shouted. 

Rickover replied in a calm tone. "All they showed him was the truth, Captain Hammond. Nothing more and nothing less. Now... Now we have to start the hard part."

* * *

* * *

On Nixon's first day back at the White House he anxiously went down to a secure room in the lower levels. By his request the crystal skull found by Ballard had been installed down there with some other equipment. As he looked into the skull it did had a message for him. 

"You know what you have to do, just do your best." 

He started crying. He took the skull off the pedestal and just held it for a little while. Once he was done crying he put the skull back and went upstairs. 

He began signing documents arranging a retreat from Vietnam and an end to the secret bombing campaign in Laos and Cambodia. He shelved diplomatic outreach to the Chinese communist government. Cut foreign military aid, made arrangements for a massive reduction in the size and scope of the US Federal Government and fired Henry Kissinger. 

He knew there would be hell to pay for all this. But before the other shoe dropped he summoned someone who had been working for him for a long time but had only met in person once. 

As G Gordon Liddy walked into the Oval Office Nixon turned off the internal recording system. 

Nixon shook his hand and offered him a seat. 

"So, what's happening? Why did you summon me here?" Asked Liddy. 

"I summoned you here to ask a question. What are we doing? What are we working towards? What's the final goal of everything we are doing here?" 

"Interesting question, okay... I suppose our final goal is to form a more perfect union. Under republican leadership." Replied Liddy. 

"And what does that mean? That we exterminate the communists around the world and suppress the democrats in this country?" 

"Yes! Certainly." Liddy said brightly. 

"What do you think the communists and democrats want?" 

"The communists want us all enslaved to their system. The democrats want to grind this country down to nothing. They proved what they wanted during the civil war. I will never go along with what the democrats want and I'll fight communism to my dying breath!" 

Liddy noticed something, Nixon's mannerisms had changed. He seemed... Different than the last time they had met. But he couldn't put his finger on it. He seemed more serene. Liddy asked in an anxious tone. 

"Mister President... Is everything okay?" 

Nixon ran his fingers through some documents on the desk and said. "Not really no. We're in the middle of a war... Several wars, wars with foreigners, wars with ourselves. You know I've been spending a lot of time with Admiral Rickover recently, he... Look, George, I'm going to say this as directly as I can. I'm going to say it unofficially here but if I need to I will say it officially. I want you to knock it off. The dirty tricks against the Democratic Party. I want you to cease and desist immediately. You're a very talented man and I don't want to lose you as a supporter. But the illegal actions against the Democratic Party, you have to knock it off immediately." 

Liddy straightened up and said, "okay, any particular reason why?" 

"Because we don't need to help the democrats screw up. And... I have another job for you. Rickover has a program running out of the Idaho National Labs. I need someone I can trust there to keep an eye on things and report back to me. A civilian assessor. This program is absolutely top secret and of the highest importance and I need a man that I can trust to keep an eye on it." 

"You're exiling me to Idaho?" 

"You don't have to take the job if you don't want to. But once you find out the details of the project I think you will want to stay there. Beyond that there's one other thing that I need to run past you. I'm changing our strategy on dealing with international communism. We're pulling out of Vietnam, we're pulling back everywhere. I've already signed documents arranging for a complete reshuffling of our defense posture and budget. We will continue to stand beside our historical allies and other nations that will stand with us against the Soviet's. But we're pulling back and allowing the dominoes to fall where they may." 

Liddy exploded to his feet and asked, "what!? Why!?!" 

"Because communism is unsustainable. It's a profoundly evil system which completely ignores all realities of human nature and economics. It's a system where they try to say that 2+2 equals whatever the party says it is. As communist regimes allied with Moscow or Beijing spread across the world they will be dependent on the Soviets and Chinese for financial aid to keep their systems going. So we're going to let them spread and completely bankrupt the Russian and Chinese governments." 

Liddy growled, "and if this leaves us wide open to Soviet or Chinese attacks?" 

"Then they attack and I push a button that drowns them in a sea of nuclear fire. We won't let Mexico or Canada fall to the communists. I'm not that crazy. But if the peoples of the third world want the loving arms of Mao or comrade Brezhnev then that's their choice. I'm no longer going to try to get them to believe American ideas about capitalism and democracy by force of arms. All that will do is make them see communism as a necessary evil. It's time we led by example." 

Liddy stood up and said, "you're giving up... You're giving up the struggle against international communism... What happened!? What did Rickover do to you!?" 

"He allowed me to see the truth, nothing more and nothing less. The Soviet and Chinese communist regimes won't last forever and this will speed up their demise." 

Nixon exhaled, reached down, turned the recorder back on and somberly announced, "it's time that we take responsibility for our actions. It's time to see that there are things bigger than our petty political squabbles. After you report to Idaho and are briefed by Rickover's people there, call me. If you don't want the assignment after that then I'll find something for you to do here in Washington. Thank you Mister Liddy." 

Nixon stood up and offered his hand. 

Liddy was spooked. Whatever this was that Rickover was involved with had fundamentally changed president Nixon into someone that he simply didn't recognize. 

Liddy shook his hand and noticed something. 

It was not clammy. 

Nixon wasn't sweaty anymore. 

Liddy leaned in and whispered, "are you really Richard Nixon?" 

"I am. For the first time in my life I am all that I am." The president replied. "Don't worry, I know how much you love a good fight and boy howdy, you're going to get one!"


	16. Euronda and the Nox.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oma goes to the Nox asking for their help to heal Morgan de la Fey. 
> 
> Stargate command has a run in with the Eurondans. It goes a little bit different this time.

It had been the first time that Oma had been to visit Morgan in months. 

Despite the ministrations of the best doctors on Aemon, Morgan had shown no signs of consciousness since she had fallen asleep. 

Oma stood by her bed and tried to talk about anything. There was so much good news. She filled Morgan in on the alliances, the building of an arsenal of ion cannons. The Tok'ra...

No response. 

Oma just held Morgan's hand and said, "it's working, I tell you it's working. We're going to have a way to charge zero point modules soon. If we have three of those fully charged will be able to recover Atlantis from the Wraith." 

No response. 

Doctor Entanill came in and sat next to her. 

"They've tried everything?" Asked Oma. 

"They've tried... Everything, and I do mean everything. Including a bunch of novel treatments. Your cousin does not appear to be interested in waking up." 

"Okay then... There's one last thing we can try." 

Oma passed Johanna a gate address. 

"I've been talking to Bra'tac and I'm pretty sure I've found a Nox world. Giant sometimes invisible rhinoceros sized hummingbirds. I'm going to go there and if they decide to show themselves... I'll beg them to help Morgan." 

"When's the mission scheduled?" 

"Tomorrow. I'm going to go alone and unarmed." 

"Geez, you talked Rickover into that?" 

"Capon actually, Rickover doesn't need to know just yet. But yeah, I've got to check all my options. I mean... Ganos... She's the one who altered reality. We need to see how far she altered it." 

"Chevron seven... Is locked!" 

Oma stepped through the gate onto a profoundly beautiful world. 

She walked down to a grove of trees. Where there was a nice clean dry spot. She collected some twigs and rocks and made a fire pit. 

She waited there for hours until the sun began to set. 

Then in the fading twilight a Nox child walked up. 

Oma offered him a seat on a log opposite her, facing the fire. Oma knew that they wouldn't be able to understand her speech right away. So she started talking, but just small talk. 

"In old British legends people were advised not to take the food of fairies. They said that if you ate fairy food that you would be forever in their thrall. The reverse? That's a bit more ambiguous. There's a legend of two green children who were taken by villagers. They would only eat..." 

Oma held up a bag full of delicious, organic, heirloom quality green peas still in their pods. 

"At first. The green children... There was a boy and a girl. The boy tried to eat... Cheeses, meats, grains. Typical peasant food. But he was unable to. Withered away and died. The girl... She willed herself to eat mortal food and lived on." 

Oma looked at the child. He was smiling. 

"So, would you be okay with going to get your parents and have us discuss... A small favor?" 

A half a dozen more Nox materialized from the forest. Their leader asked formally. "Why are you here? What do you want from us?" 

"I need you to take a look at my cousin. Can you come to her or should I bring her to you?" 

"Bring her to us." Replied the Nox. 

Morgan De La Fey was loaded into an all terrain stretcher pod and brought through the Stargate to a pedestal on the Nox planet. 

A Nox elder looked her over. 

"This woman is a mess. You're going to have to leave her with us. We're going to have to fly her up to the city." 

Oma let the Nox get on with their work.

* * *

Meanwhile, on a war torn world, hundreds of light years away. SG2 was completing a mission. 

"Well, thanks once again for the canister containing all your military knowledge. Bye..." 

Carter walked through the Earth gate. 

"Lower the event horizon cover. Immediately!" He ordered. 

Carter got out of the way of the fast descending cover and looked at the probe feed still online in the Eurondan central bunker. Carter addressed them. 

"Oh, and just so you know. We were able to establish communications to your enemies. And that deuterium of ours that your Fusion reactor has been sucking down? We spiked it... with pure thorium." 

The network of discretely hidden Aemonain sensors on the other side began to fail. Sensors indicating signs of a massive fission explosion. 

As the probe feed went out Stargate Command concluded that would be the last that they would ever hear of the Eurondans. 

They were wrong. 

By an odd series of events the giant hole in the ground that this made happened to make it very easy for The Breeders to find the gate and dial home device. SG2 had been able to get a radio signal to Breeder infantry forces fighting near the bunker. The Breeders had explained their side of the story and SG2 had explained theirs. Leaving the attacking infantry with the coordinates to Earth. 

They opened the undamaged gate. 

After a few weeks of negotiating Voss came through the gate, carrying the cylinder. 

She was rather anxious about the dozen or so guns pointed at her. 

The guns were lowered. 

"Is this what you want?" Asked Voss. 

"Yes, put it on the ground and leave." Said a voice from the darkness. 

Voss did so. 

"Do you mind if I dial home?" Asked Voss. 

"Go right ahead." Said the voice. 

Voss dialed Earth. Once she was through she asked Admiral Capon. 

"You're absolutely sure that there was nothing in that cylinder that you weren't able to copy?" 

"Completely sure, the Eurondans had some clever weapons and their medical tech had some... Interesting innovations. But there wasn't much in there that we haven't been able to think up."

"Think we will ever hear of them again?" Asked Carter. 

"Don't know, on the one hand. Their planet is a complete mess. They need time alone to repair the damage. On the other... Their planet is a complete mess. We have established that we are friendly and peaceful and we have a variety of useful resources. The decision is theirs." Replied Voss. 


	17. How to charge a Zero Point Module.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says on the chapter heading. 
> 
> And the formalization of the alliance with the Tok'ra.

"Alright, commence startup. Let's aim for twenty percent." 

A beam shot from it to a device that held the Abydos ZPM. 

Innana stood over the ancient stone tablet interaction system and explained to Admirals Rickover and Capon. 

"This device functions as a visual representation of the fluctuations that occur at the quantum level. Expressing the entropy in the ZPM as relative coarseness. The idea is to get it to a place where all of these stones are flat and not...." 

The stones began pumping up and down furiously. 

"Not to worry, there's only so far they can go. Let's just..." 

She pushed down three of the stones and the stones froze in position. 

"Well... According to this, this module is at seventy percent of its energetic potential. Shut everything down!" 

The machine was shut down and the Antarctic ZPM was put in its holder. The machine was restarted and the stones began moving again. Then they froze in a different position. Much lower than the position indicated for the Abydos ZPM. 

She sighed and said, "okay... I was pretty sure this was going to happen. This ZPM is at... Just over one percent of its potential power. We need to charge it."

"How long will that take?" Asked Philo and Hyman simultaneously. 

"Give me a minute." 

Innana looked over her equipment. 

"Judging by the numbers, at this rate it's going to take three years." 

"Well that's fine, we don't need it fully charged and the machine is only at twenty percent, right? We can crank up the power... Right?" Asked Rickover. 

"Yeah, but we're going to do it slowly. Remember, if this planet sized contraption breaks we can't get another one. We can get more naquada, we can even get more Trinium. The only thing we have found remotely like the gems in the salamander statue is the Eye of Ra." 

"Oh quit being such a square, Innana. I've looked over your gear. You can up the power to fifty percent right now." Said Capon. 

"Okay, but if we blow up, you die too." 

"Understood." 

"Increasing power to fifty percent!" 

A loud hum echoed through the complex as Inanna twisted a stone on the right ride of the console. 

The stones unlocked and started expressing their mathematical probabilities. 

"Okay, at this rate... I'd say we have about... Ten months of charging before I'm willing to try manually smoothing out the fluctuations. So I suppose I'll see you then." 

* * *

Meanwhile, at Stargate Command in Idaho. 

"Unscheduled incoming traveler!" 

The cover was lowered. The guards were ready. 

"Receiving a radio signal." 

"This is Egeria of the Tok'ra. To whom am I speaking?" 

"This is Commander Rostrum." 

"Ah, commander. If Oma Desala is there please tell her that I would like to personally thank her for rescuing me. I would also like to extend an invitation to discuss an alliance between our peoples. If you like then I will see you at Heliopolis at your earliest opportunity." 

"Very good, we will meet you there. SGC out."


	18. Rebirth.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unoccupied planet rich in trinium is found and an immature Tok'ra symbiote is given to Master Bra'tac.

January 9 1972. 

P3R-357. 

SG2 were waiting by the gate for the Aemonians to show up. 

According to their limited survey, they had just hit the jackpot. An uninhabited world with soil that was rich in trinium. 

Up until now the trinium deposits on every world they had explored had been either thin or nonexistent. Aemon had no natural trinium, neither did Earth. But if they were going to build ion cannons that were smaller than a building, they were going to need trinium, lots of it. 

"This planet seems really nice. Not too hot, not too cold. Nice beaches." Observed Captain Carter. 

"It is a pleasant world. Far more pleasant than Chulak." Replied Bra'tac. 

"Yes, it almost seems a tragedy to think of what this place will look like after being industrialized." Said Ballard. 

"Oh come on, you don't have any faith in Aemonain industrial technology?" Asked Master Chief Don Ericsson. 

"The Aemonians have much better technology than us, yes. But we are still going to have to rip these ores out of the ground. Mining is probably the most destructive thing that we humans do to the environment." 

"Would you prefer we do it as the Goa'uld do it? With armies of slaves breaking rocks with the crudest of tools?" Replied Bra'tac. 

Before Ballard could reply the gate began to activate. 

"Alright, look sharp everyone. This won't be one of their teams. This will be an industrial survey crew." Said Carter. 

The vortex opened. 

As expected a woman stepped out. But she did not look like what they were expecting. This was the shortest and ugliest Aemonain any of them had ever seen. She looked like a gender flipped version of a surly New York teamster. Right down to the cigar she was smoking. 

"Welcome to P3R-357." Carter said as he extended his hand for a shake. "I'm Captain Jacob Carter and this is SG2." 

She gripped his hand in a crushing grasp and said. "Daria Fottaland, of the Fottland-Rhys and Yanwan Co-op. Get out of the way please. I got heavy equipment coming through." 

They got out of the way as several custom made trucks and dozens of Aemonian workers came through the gate. 

Once they were through Daria walked away from the Stargate to a stream not too far away. The workers and SG2 followed Daria. 

She took out a cup and drank some water from the stream. 

"Ah... Absolutely pure." 

She filled her cup again. Then walked over and picked up a handful of dirt and chewed on it. 

She thought for a minute. 

Then washed the dirt out of her mouth. 

"This planet tastes like pure, uncut, unmolested potentiality. Dial Aemon, tell them to send the rocket through and begin prep for launch." 

"Rocket?" Asked Ballard. 

"We're going to launch a satellite into orbit. The satellite will conduct a preliminary survey of the entire planet." 

"You're going to launch a rocket... Here?" Asked a befuddled Ericsson. 

"Yeah, we're going to have to clear some trees for a launch site first. So I'm going to need your help for that." 

"There's a piece of open, flat level ground not far from here." Said Bra'tac. 

"Take me there." Said Daria. 

The piece of leveled ground was a surface of granite. Daria did some surveying and concluded. 

"Absolutely perfect. It would be hard to imagine a better launch site." 

A few hours later the rocket arrived. Over the course of three days launch preparations were made. Finally, the relatively small rocket was launched.

By then Daria and her company had completed their initial survey. SG2 was told to go back to Earth with the news that P3R-357 was perfect for the construction of the new proposed shipyards.

Following their debriefing Master Bra'tac was told that he had a new assignment. He was to report to Heliopolis to meet the Tok'ra. 

The first Tok'ra symbote to be born in millennia swam around in its jar. 

Master Bra'tac looked at it. 

The symbiote looked back and felt... Incredibly nervous. 

Bra'tac asked Egeria. 

"So you want me to... get to know my new Prim'ta? How is that possible?" 

"It has been theorized that while in a deep state of Kel-no-rem the brain waves of the symbiote and host can become one. I wanted to investigate this theory. But I was captured and entombed before I could do so." Explained Egeria. 

"Interesting." Observed Bra'tac. 

He removed his armor and laid down on a bed. Egeria reached into his pouch and removed his hissing and spitting, almost full grown Goa'uld larvae from Bra'tac and placed it in a secure container. 

As it was taken away by Selmak the limp Tok'ra symbiote was inserted. 

Bra'tac and the Tok'ra stayed on Heliopolis for the next few days. Conducting tests, making sure that there were no complications. 

Later that day Bra'tac entered the deep state of Kel-no-rem. 

At first all he saw was darkness. 

A child's voice whispered to him. 

"So... You are Master Bra'tac. Former first prime to Apophis." 

"I am." 

"You have joined the resistance. Why?" 

"Because the Goa'uld are monsters. They are all insane and they enslave my people." 

"How do you know that I'm not insane? How do you know that we aren't just as bad as they are?" 

"I don't, not yet." 

"But you trust us enough to allow me to be implanted in you." 

"Trust... Doesn't factor into it. As far as I know, you are just another Goa'uld. Another Prim'ta. You will mature inside me and if you prove to be evil. Then I will simply cast you out, have you ground up and made into this... Tretonin drug that Oma told us about." 

"And if I'm not evil?" 

"Well... I don't know. But either way, unless I get killed or something else intervenes. We are going to be together for several decades." 

The darkness lifted. 

Bra'tac found himself watching one of his most pleasant memories. Training with his own father and a young Teal'c. 

When Bra'tac woke from Kel-No-Rem, Bra'tac was at peace. He held his hand over his symbote pouch, and smiled. Egeria was there when he woke and asked. "So... It went well?" 

"It was... Strange. But a very interesting experience. Thank you for my new Prim'ta."


	19. The capture of Ra.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In order to manufacture hyper-drives and find out what is waiting on Praclarush. The Earthlings and Aemonians are going to need a ship. 
> 
> This is how they get one.

"Look, we understand where you're coming from Admiral, and since Voss got that Senate seat on Aemon I understand that we're a man short. And we have all seen what Liddy was able to do in combat when he was with SG5. But he is a completely unacceptable replacement." Said Rostrum. 

"Yeah... Okay... Believe me, I understand where you're coming from but this... This is coming from both the President and Quetzalcoatl." Replied Rickover. 

"The president I can understand. But Quetzalcoatal? Why would he care who is on SG1?" Asked Rostrum. 

"And who gave him a say?!" Asked Hammond. 

"Okay then... A direct order from the president isn't enough. I'll be sure to tell him that." 

Hammond stated firmly, "look, SG1 is a military unit, yes. But we don't just have military jobs. We study, we research and we are diplomats. We need to be diplomatic! And George Gordon Liddy is one of the most undiplomatic people I've ever had the misfortune to meet!" 

"Really? You've met before? When?" Asked Rickover. 

"Three years ago I was assigned to the Pentagon for a couple of months. My sister dragged me to a Republican Party fundraiser. I got in a huge argument with Liddy about... Zeppelins. Of all things." 

Rickover chuckled at Hammond's anecdote and asked. 

"You're being awfully quiet over there, Oma." 

"Okay..." 

Oma looked fiddled with her tablet computer for a moment. 

"Oh you have got to be..." Rickover said in an exasperated tone. 

"One moment admiral... Ah here we go." 

She held up an image of a man who looked like he was having some innocent fun with a guy who looked like he was about to twist the innocent fun guy's head clean off his shoulders, standing right behind him. 

"Here, you see this guy who looks like he's just having some fun? I'd serve on a submarine with this guy. I'd help him juggle radioactive rocks under a thousand feet of water." 

She turned off her tablet. 

"But I'm not going to serve with that hotheaded Lilly unless I have a damn good reason." 

"Liddy... His name is Liddy... It's... Okay... Fine! Just... One mission, okay? I'm not asking you to juggle the underwater hot rocks. Just give the guy a chance!" 

"Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmaybe." 

"Oh come on Oma!" Said Hammond and Rostrum simultaneously.

"Okay, fine... This... Liddy has an exemplary combat record. That counts for something... Right?" 

Hammond and Rostrum threw their heads back in exasperation. As Oma said seriously. "But it's not going to be this next mission. It's going to be a nice, gentle walk through the mostly empty woods of a planet with an absolute minimum of possible risks."

* * *

Ra's ship settled into a stable geostationary orbit over the great pyramid of Abydos. 

As had been done time and time again. It was time to collect the naquada supply of the mines there. 

Everything was going as it always did until they sent down a team of Jaffa into the pyramid. As they ringed down Master Chief Don Ericsson of SG2, wearing an Atanik armband ringed up to the bridge of the Ha'tak. He waved at everyone there and said, "howdy boys!" 

He unloaded his sixgun into the five Jaffa in front of him. Firing as fast as the heavily customized revolver could. Before Ra had any idea what was going on Ericsson had a needle in his neck filled with a variety of very potent sedatives. 

He removed Ra's ribbon device and spoke into his radio. 

"Attention ground, I am about to try the rings." 

"Go ahead, we're in position to ring up." Replied Carter. 

"Copy that." 

He pressed the button and the rest of SG2 ringed onto the Ha'tak's bridge. 

While this was happening Ericsson ran around the adjacent decks. Some Jaffa he shot. Most he just punched with a set of metal knuckles crafted from solid HY80 Steel. The knuckles hit so hard their heads exploded or parts of their chests were launched out of their backs. 

By the time the rest of SG2 ringed in a sizable portion of the ships crew were dead or unconscious. 

"We can take it from here." Carter said confidently. 

"Roger." Ericsson said as he slumped into Ra's throne. 

Carter walked over to Ra and put a set of custom made shackles on his legs and arms and sighed in relief as he heard the sound of dozens, soon to be hundreds of US and Aemonian navy personnel speaking over the radio as they got into position to board Ra's ship. 

Ericsson loaded his last six bullets into his sixgun. It was almost glowing hot from all the rounds that had gone through it. 

He was hot. 

Ra had been late. They had cut this awfully close. 

Ericsson felt like time was slowing down and stopping as he felt the armband click off. 

He dropped his gun as he passed out. 

* * *

On the flight to Aemon, Ericsson woke up in a vat of some kind of liquid. 

"Um... What is this?" 

"Ah good you're awake, boy, Ra just had to take his time on this one didn't he? This is Elinggojel, your organs were really close to falling apart completely so we stuck you in this to keep you alive." Explained Doctor Entanill. 

"Can I get out of this?" 

"Not for another twenty hours, please. But yeah, great work." 

"We got Ra?" 

"We got Ra, we got his ship, we got his kids and we got his Jaffa. Selmak is driving this thing all the way back to Aemon. It's going to be a bit of a trip, but... Something that I hoped would happen... Happened." 

"What?" 

"Oh... Ah Jacob and Selmak are talking. She's giving him and Bra'tac and a bunch of other crew flying lessons. Things are good." 

The ship was landed on the restored pyramid that Cronos had built on Aemon millennia ago. 

Aemonian and Earthling engineers boarded the ship. They began examining it for weaknesses. It's squadrons of Death Gliders were flown to various test sites on Aemon and a few would be shipped to Earth. Initial examinations concluded that the Ha'tak was well suited to modification to carry the crude first generation Aemonian ion cannons. 


	20. Stay behinds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The interrogation of Ra. 
> 
> And the hunt for Goa'uld's who remained on Earth.

Twenty one SG teams were formed by the US Navy. 

Thirty by the Aemonian Navy. 

These teams dispersed across the Milky Way galaxy and made many discoveries. 

The bulk of the worlds they discovered were either uninhabited or fairly primitive. These worlds were left in peace. But some were given books that would, when the information was distributed, create a revolution. The information was fairly innocuous. Dealing with metal forging technologies, how to make paper and printing presses. A standardization of measurements based on the imperial measurement system which ironically enough had many commonalities with the Aemonian standard measurement system. 

This knowledge would take a long time to flower though. 

A veritable constellation of advanced civilizations destroyed or almost destroyed by their own technologies were found. The survivors of these civilizations were evacuated to Aemon and Earth at first. Some elected to live simpler lives with less technology on primitive worlds with welcoming populations. 

Those who wanted to continue to live with and develop advanced technologies were mostly settled on P3R-357. Which became known as Magnum. A word that meant the same thing in English, French and Aemonian. 

Thousands of skilled technicians got to work on creating the infrastructure that would create the armory of the new Aemonian-Earthling space fleet. 

The work was difficult. But the survivors of these almost destroyed civilizations soon created their own communities. 

In time other races would find their way to Magnum. Where they would join the effort to build the new fleet. But before these ships could be constructed. Some... Key information had to be extracted first. 

Ra woke up. 

Someone had wafted some smelling salts under his nose. 

He looked around. He quickly realized that he was quite firmly shackled to a chair. He was not getting out of this. 

He noticed that there were two other beings in the room with him. An attractive red headed woman and a Jaffa. A Jaffa he recognized. A former first prime of Apophis. Ra asked him. 

"Bra'tac... what's going on here?" 

"The days of the false gods are numbered. That's what's going on." 

The woman started laughing. 

It started off like an amused chuckle. But within moments she had her head arched back and was cackling like an escaped mental patient. 

Ra looked at the woman and grew even more nervous. Bra'tac looked somewhat freaked out. 

The woman stopped laughing and explained. "Pardon me, it's just that I don't get an opportunity like this very often. I mean... You're pure evil... Ra. So, we have cut you off from your sarcophagus. That's going to have an effect on you sooner or later. But before we get to that..." 

She leaned in front of him and said. "I'm going to hit you with every single chemical, every single energy field, every single mind trick in my inventory. By the time I'm done with you... You aren't even going to be able to remember who you are. I'm going to destroy you in ways that you can't even begin to comprehend. But before we get to that... There's some... Unfinished business." 

She stood back and pounded on the door. Egeria and Selmak walked into the room. 

Ra looked at both of them in disbelief. 

Egeria slapped Ra in the face. 

As did Selmak. 

After they walked out of the room Johanna added. "Oh and to the host... Whoever you are. We are going to get you out of this as soon as we can. But we need to get some information from the symbiote first so... Sorry about this." 

Johanna injected Ra with several needles full of liquids as she began ranting. "They said it couldn't be done. That we could affect the mind of the host but not the symbiote. Oma said that was something that they had never been able to do in the other timeline. That the Tollan were the only ones who even tried. Well, guess who just came back from an internship at a Tollan biotech laboratory? And you know what they said to me when I was there? They called me mad... Crazy... Wendell! Well who is laughing now!? Who is mad now!? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!?" 

Heavy electrical cables began to wrap around Ra. Connections burrowed into the hosts brain and the symbiotes brain. 

Ra and his host were electronically separated. The host was allowed to sleep. While Johanna created a virtual world completely under her control to conduct the interrogation of the symbiote. 

The interrogation of Ra took six weeks. 

At the end of this the symbiote was removed by the Tok'ra. Egeria herself held up the container to an audience of Aemonain and US Navy officers and said. "Behold... The god Ra!" And smashed the container on the floor. 

The host came back to consciousness. 

"Echonotowatail afumar kahn plat Hathor!?" 

"Excuse me?" 

"Hathor! Hathor! Oh coloniwait hengo falaighiat... Ovumar!" 

He was leaning towards a glass of water. 

Johanna handed the glass to him. He took a drink through a straw and said, "echalie haert pon vang... Ah... Ovumar." 

"Hathor?" Asked Egeria. 

"Mecheniohy agua farn plattitplis larogargah... Hathor... Heh, heh, heh." 

"Okay, let's get to work on figuring out this guys language." 

Two weeks later. 

Dozens of US Navy personnel oversaw the opening of a Mexican pyramid. 

Inside they found the sarcophagus of Hathor. Which was very carefully moved to a specially prepared facility where it was opened. 

As Hathor woke up she shouted, "where is Ra?" 

"Right here." 

She turned around and saw Ra's host standing right behind her. 

Multiple darts flew into her neck. She passed out and was relieved of her ribbon device, her invisibility cloak and her clothes. 

Hathor woke up in a cell. 

Doctor Entanill walked in and took some notes. 

She sat down as she breathed her pheromones on her. 

Johanna licked her lips and took the mask off that made her look like a man. Sealed the mask in a plastic bag and said. Thank you for the sample of your pheromones. 

At around this time, following information from Oma. The canopic jars containing Osiris and Isis were found by a US Navy survey team. The shipwreck containing the artifacts of the Stewart Expedition was secured. 

A little more challenging was securing permission from the Egyptian government to conduct an archeological dig near the site of the tomb of Isis and Osiris. But permission was obtained and Egeria personally flew the very old Goa'uld ship off to a secure facility where it's hyperdrive would be studied and compared to the one in Ra's ship. A not fully unexpected discovery was made aboard Osiris's ship. The eye of Osiris. Which added to the eyes of Ra and the Eye of Apophis which had been gracefully stolen and replaced with a replica by Teal'c and sent off to the Salamander device where an interesting discovery was made. The eyes functioned as base-plates for zero point module chargers. 

Compared to the rest of these operations the capture of Seth was surprisingly easy and straightforward. By the time the Navy found out about him he was in the process of moving into a new compound in New Mexico. He and several of his acolytes were shopping in a local supermarket when tranquilizer darts erupted from hidden launchers in an aisle where he was known to occasionally come to shop for his favorite food. 

Seedless grapes. 

The acolytes were given a small electrical shock and sent on their way. 

Following another intense interrogation by Johanna Entanill, Seth was handed over to the Tok'ra.

The Abydonian and Antartic ZPMs grew more energetic every day.


	21. Aspirations.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Aemonian civilization was working towards before the Stargate was opened. 
> 
> A Goa'uld attacks Aemon.

Nicole Nocollini was trying to psych herself up. 

She was about to give a speech in front of the Aemonian Senate that she knew wasn't going to go over well. 

The Aemonians had colonized three other worlds in their solar system. Those three colonies did not enjoy a very pleasant existence. 

Up until the Stargate had opened the plan had been to use the resources of these colonies to build a Dyson Swarm. Eventually creating a Dyson Sphere. 

Now all those resources were going into the construction of weapons and as the lead scientist of the Dyson Swarm project it was her job to get those resources directed back towards the swarm project. 

But she suffered from stage fright. She knew she really wasn't the right person for the job. The right person for this job was probably Salan Tintus. The chief administrator of the swarm project. But Salan had recently suffered a stroke. 

When Admiral Capon gave her briefing on the Goa'uld threat to the Senate the information had also been shared with the leaders of the swarm project. Nicole was sure that the reason why she was giving this speech was because the swarm project was being sacrificed and she was going to be the straw that broke the proverbial camels back. 

"And with that I conclude my presentation, thank you." 

As the senate applauded a woman giving a presentation on improving dental hygiene in one of Aemon's more primitive provinces. Nicole took the stage. 

Trying to look as professional as possible Nicole walked out into the center of the senate. 

The senators were silent. 

"Good... Good afternoon everyone. Um... Today I would like to... Okay, one moment." 

She shuffled through her papers and found what she was looking for. 

"For the past twenty years we have been accumulating resources for the creation of a Dyson sphere. Our entire civilization has in some way or another been working towards the creation of this device. We all know what we stand to gain from its creation. An over abundance of energy that we could dedicate to a variety of projects. Perhaps even the creation of a Crevanist thruster which would effectively make our entire solar system a spaceship capable of crossing the vastness of space. I have dedicated my career to this project, as have hundreds of thousands of other Aemonians. We have addressed every single technical concern. Thirty eight percent of the work is completed, are we really going to abandon this project just because of the Goa'uld threat?" 

The senate was silent. 

"Thank... Thank you for your time... Goodbye." 

The president of the senate said. "Thank you, now, for the opposing point of view. Senator Voss Farli." 

Voss walked by the petite Nicole and took her position. She adjusted the microphone and said. 

"It is the view of myself and the Aemonian military that the swarm project should continue." 

Gasps echoed through the senate. 

"I know that might seem odd, you were expecting me to come here and say that the project needed to be shelved and those resources focused towards the construction of warships. If we were under immediate threat from the Goa'uld and we were limited to our solar system, then yes that's exactly the speech I would be giving. However the Goa'uld are not yet aware of our existence and we are not limited to our own solar system. We have discovered several planets that offer resources that are not available in this solar system. What our earthling friends are able to provide should be sufficient and we have found various other friends who are helping as well. But here is the main reason why I believe that the swarm project should go ahead. From my reconnaissance it appears that no other race in the galaxy has attempted to create anything like this swarm. As Nicole said, the prof of concept prototypes have all worked out and are already providing an abundance of power to two of our colony worlds. If this project works out, and based on the science it appears that it will. We will have a power beyond anything that any other race can match. If we are able to construct a Crevanist thruster we will be able to use our entire solar system as a colossal battleship against the Goa'uld. Thank you for your time, goodbye." 

The president announced. "Alright. We shall now adjourn for the requisite 24 hours to discuss the matter at hand and bring it to a vote." 

She banged her gavel. 

Voss sat down next to Nicole. Nicole whispered a question. "Okay, what's the real reason why you militants want this to go forward?" 

"The salamander device is thousands of years old, we still aren't 100% sure how it works and it takes two years for it to fully charge a ZPM. If the swarm can charge a ZPM then we can start making our own ZPMs and even mass produce them." 

Voss sketched out some calculations. "If the swarm is complete and we figure out a way to transfer the power we could use energy that is just being lost to space from our sun to fully charge a ZPM in as little as three months." 

The phone rang in Admiral Capon's bedroom. 

She groaned. 

It was three in the morning. 

Her staff knew better than to bother her at this time of night with anything less than a massive emergency. 

"What!?" She asked. 

"Sir... Deep space telemetry reports we have nine Ha'tak's in the solar system. We estimate they will be in orbit in less than three hours." 

"Is the defense grid online?" 

"Yes sir." 

"Good, get everything else to defense condition two. I'll be in as soon as I can." 

She hung up and groaned. "Ugh... Nine of them. I suppose they aren't messing around." 

Admiral Capon shambled into her headquarters like a zombie and looked over the situation. 

According to their sensors the Ha'tak's approaching the planet belonged to Morrigan. Which wasn't too surprising. Aemon's SG7 team had recently humiliated a force of her Jaffa and liberated a world where she had a major naquada mining operation. 

"They are almost in range. Shall we fire the ion cannons on the defense platforms?" Asked a lieutenant. 

"No, arm the long range missiles." 

"The missiles? But we have established that those won't get through their shields." 

"I want to test their shields. I want to know how much they will take. Hold off with the ion cannons until they are closer in." 

"Affirmative. Firing long range missiles." 

Nine ICBM like missiles fired from the unmanned platform orbiting Aemon's moon. They flew quickly, but as expected they bounced off the shields. 

More ICBM's fired, and still the Ha'tak's advanced. Large bombs, small bombs, thermonuclear weapons, tactical weapons. 

The Goa'uld ships kept on coming. 

Admiral Capon examined the data pouring in and concluded, "interesting, very interesting." 

"Sir their plasma cannons are almost in range of our orbital platforms!" 

"Fire the ion cannons!" 

With a single volley the attacking fleet was destroyed. 

Admiral Capon relaxed into her chair and asked. "Do we have maps of the realm of Morrigan?" 

"Um... Yes sir, why?" 

"The Goa'uld want a fight. I think it's time we gave them a fight. I want an ops plan drawn up. I want to secure as much of Morrigan's realm as we can before the rest of the Goa'uld find out she's dead. Notify the Yelin corporation. There's a lot of raw resources on those wrecked motherships that we can salvage."


	22. Annus Mirabilius

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things begin to change on Earth in dramatic ways.
> 
> The three zero point modules are fully charged. So it's time to go recover the city of Atlantis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://youtu.be/B3PSgUp4bLo

1973 started off innocuously enough. 

Aemonian technologies had begun to filter into the hands of various American companies. Including a few started by retiring navy officers. Besides the new generation of molten salt reactors, a variety of new battery technologies began to become available. Batteries that would allow the development of useful electric cars. 

These new batteries allowed a variety of other technologies to become viable. Aemonian fission technology, using molten salt and thorium made mining of uranium unnecessary. Thorium was far more abundant than Uranium and once it was enriched into U233 it made excellent reactor fuel. Aemonian reactors ran at extreme high temperatures as opposed to the high pressures of pressurized water reactors. This 'waste heat' was used in a variety of heavy industrial processes. Particularly recycling. 

These technologies received an unexpected boost at the end of the year. The OPEC oil embargo against the west forced the widespread adoption of these technologies. The price of oil fluctuated wildly. In the halls of power the decision was made to go ahead full speed with further adoption of Aemonian technologies. 

Work began at the Idaho national labs on fusion reactors. New generation solar panels were installed. 

While all this was happening on Earth, early in that year Ra's ship settled into orbit over Praclarush. There had been talk about giving the ship a different name. But Oma had insisted that they not bother. Stargate Command in the other timeline had endless bad luck with Goa'uld motherships and she had said that they shouldn't bother renaming it until after its refit with Aemonian technologies. 

But the decision was made that once the giant eye of Ra was removed from the hull that it would be renamed. However no one in the US or Aemonian navy could agree on a new name. So it remained Ra's ship. 

It took the scanners awhile but they found the outpost, Taonas and ringed down. 

A third ZPM had been found. 

"So that's the thing they sent us to get?" Asked Liddy through the speaker on his chem suit. 

"This is the thing!" Said Oma brightly. "Now let's get back to the rings before this planet melts us!" 

Once back on the ship Liddy stared into the module. He could have sworn he heard music coming from the thing. He had a profound desire to take the thing back to his bunk and sleep next to it. 

"We're about to test this thing for taint, Mr Liddy, would you mind leaving the chamber?" Asked Commander Rostrum. 

"How much radiation are you going to hit this thing with?" Asked Liddy. 

"Oh, just enough to risk you getting cancer. Now out of the chamber before I drag you out!" Rostrum shouted. 

Liddy stormed off to an observation area. 

After a few weeks in hyperspace the ship arrived over Aemon. The Taonas module was ringed down to the Aemon gate facility where it was sent through the gate there to the Salamander Device. Inanna Capon radioed back to the ship. 

"Confirmed, we now have three zero point modules. Recognition code Alpha, Alpha, seventeen, six, eight niner. Salamander Actual signing off, 1345 Zulu." 

The transmission ceased. The Stargate closed. Onboard Ra's ship, Liddy sighed in relief as he asked. "Okay, so, is that it? Is the mission over?" Asked Liddy. 

"Um... Not quite..." Said Oma. "There's one more thing." 

"They are going to shoot a ballistic missile at us." Said Captain Jacob Carter in a deadpan tone. 

Liddy gulped. 

"Well come on." Oma said as she pointed out of the bridge visor. 

Liddy ran to the visor and saw the rocket rising from the surface of Aemon. 

"What the hell!?" Asked Liddy. 

"Don't worry, it's just to test the shields. That rocket is carrying a ten kiloton warhead. The shields on this are rated for over 500 megatons." Explained Hammond. 

"But you may want to put these goggles on and look away." Said Oma. 

Hammond counted down. 

"Five, four, three, two, one... Impact!" 

Data flowed to the network of sensors onboard the Ha'tak. 

The Aemonian and US navy shipbuilders had just learned everything they needed to build a ship which could withstand nuclear blasts. 

Carter wandered around the bridge with a Geiger counter. 

"Point three milliroentgen. Ptath did a really good job on the shields of this ship..."

"But I think we can do better." Rostrum added. 

Selmak smiled and began the procedure to land the ship for its refit. 

With the recovery of the Taonas ZPM an interesting discovery was made. 

It was easier to charge three ZPMs than it was to charge one. 

With three ZPM's and the eyes of the Goa'uld sharing the load, the Salamander Device could be run up to full power with a generous safety margin. Power could be shared between the three modules. Over the course of a year the quantum fluctuations of the modules were synchronized and with the power of an entire planet being fed into them they grew more and more energetic until...

Innana Capon opened the case and announced. 

"Three zero point modules charged to ninety eight percent of their full energetic potential." 

She closed the case, locked it, secured it with a seal and only after getting Rickover's signature on some forms did she allow him to take the case. 

"That's three whole pocket dimensions worth of power, Admiral. Please be careful with them. And I damn well expect to see the Atlantis modules as soon as you can get them." 

Rickover hoisted the case for a moment to check the weight and said. "As soon as we're through charge the Earth gate for twenty five hours." 

"Twenty five!?" 

"I want a margin of error." 

Inanna did some quick math in her head. Completely charging a Stargate took about 250 hours. She asked. 

"But your gate still doesn't have a DHD, wait, are you using the Giza gate or the Antarctic Gate?" 

"The Antarctic gate is still in storage. After this mission we are going switch over to the Antarctic gate and DHD to conserve power. We estimate that it will take 200 hours to recharge the Antarctic DHD." 

"Okay, sounds good to me. Good luck, admiral." 

"Chevron Eight is locked!" 

The gate opened, a probe was sent through. 

Oma gave a thumbs up when she saw the images of the other side. 

"Alright let's move it!" Announced Colonel Dawson. 

The marines of SG3 went pouring through the gate. Followed by a force of Aemonian marines, several vehicles full of equipment and SG1. 

As they fanned out into the city they were all looking for the central power vault. They had an idea that it was in the center of the city. But that was still a large area to search. 

Oma stood by the gate with her MP5 waiting for the news that the ZPM hub had been found. 

They searched for an hour until they found it. 

The recharged ZPM's were brought down, Oma, Liddy, and Colonel Dawson personally handled the operation. 

The modules were switched out one at a time. 

As soon as the first one clicked into place all three of them winced for a moment as the power went completely out in the city. 

"I really thought this would work." Said Oma. 

"You thought this would work!?" Asked Liddy. 

"Yeah well, we did test after test after test but it's not like we had our own Atlantis to plug one of these things into before we came here." Said Dawson. 

Something rumbled through the city.

"And.... now we're going to drown." Said Liddy in an unamused tone. 

The lights came back on. 

"All stations report!" Ordered Dawson. 

As the stations reported in there were no leaks. Dawson sighed in relief as they extracted the second depleted ZPM.

Once this operation was completed the almost dead ZPM's were put in a case which was sealed and locked. 

After a day of testing and checking Earth was dialed. 

As the gate opened everyone in the gate room winced in case everything exploded. 

But it didn't. 

The probe was returned to Earth holding the three almost dead ZPM's. Once they were through Earth dialed in again. 

Dozens more technicians poured through the gate and work began on getting the city back to the Milky Way. 

Time was taken to figure out how to use the cities long range scanners. 

The Wraith were in the middle of a feeding cycle. Dozens of their ships were traversing the Pegasus Galaxy, but there were none within hundreds of light years. 

As he looked at that screen Hammond announced. "We are coming back here. We will... Get these bastards. Once we have what we need to do so." 

Ultimately, with a bit of help from Oma and translations of the control board the decision was made to simply enter the coordinates to a world on the edge of the Milky Way into the cities flight computer. 

The city rumbled and detached from the sea floor. 

As it breached the surface with the force of buoyancy it settled on the surface for a few minutes. 

Everyone looked at each other anxiously as they waited for what happened next. 

After an unexpectedly boring three hour wait, the cities computers was finally satisfied to begin flight preparation. 

The computer had concluded that after tens of thousands of years on the ocean floor that it could benefit from some fresh air. So every single vent, passageway and intake in the city was opened wide to switch out the air completely before flying between two galaxies. Once this was done the vents, passageways and intakes were closed and the city began to levitate into the air. 

The trip though the atmosphere was intense. 

Liddy was smushed up against a window the whole time giggling with the thought that they were in fact... Flying a city. 

Into orbit. 

The computer read the coordinates. 

And the hyperdrive was activated. 

On the planet Magnum the first three Raven gunships built on that planet waited in orbit. 

They did not have hyperdrives. So they were, for the time being. Stuck in that area. 

Once the third ZPM had been found the decision had been made to halt further work on hyperdrives and a variety of other technologies until after the city of Atlantis had been recovered. 

The industrial establishment of Magnum was in a curious state. Plenty of the workers, designers and engineers wanted to go ahead with the designs that they already had. They were sure that what they had now would be enough to face the Goa'uld. 

Others weren't so sure. 

Atlantis dropped out of hyper-speed, five hundred thousand miles from Magnum. As the flying city moved towards the planet the three Raven's escorted the city into the atmosphere. 

A large area of one of Magnum's southern continent's had been specially prepared for the incoming city. A vast area of leveled bedrock.

Thousands of allied scientists were waiting for the city. Along with another of Rickover and Capon's volunteers. Diane Lawlor. She had put on the Atanik armband a few days ago and was already down to 300 pounds from a weight of 513. 

She was set up at a data terminal in the city with the controls translated to English. She asked, "so what do you want me to do?" 

"You see that delta winged bomber aircraft landing outside? We want whatever technologies are needed to make them effective against one of these." Said admiral Capon as she showed Lawlor a briefing on the Ha'tak and its capabilities. 

Lawlor walked over to the window and watched the bomber land. It had been equipped with the hyperdrive taken out of Osiris's ship. With Ra's ship still in the middle of a refit, the Denouement and Hornet not yet finished. This B62 was the only ship in the alliances hands at the moment that was capable of interstellar flight. 

Well... 

If you didn't count Atlantis. 

Lawlor was led outside. 

She measured, she examined. She took every single relevant data point off the bomber and went into a room deep in the sublevels of Atlantis. 

The room was large, replete with water fixtures, pools, comfortable chairs, refrigerators and other useful things. 

A holographic model of the Super Hustler was projected into this room. 

"This... Is going to take awhile." Said Lawlor. 

"Well, get to work." Rickover said. As he strutted out of the room about forty of the finest minds in Aemonian shipbuilding and B62 Super Hustler operation. 

At around this time the prototype battleships Denouement and Hornet were being prepped for launch. 

The factories on Magnum were almost finished.

And the line of no return was about to be crossed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check your batteries before you travel, that's the advice we would give the Atlantis expedition if we could.


	23. Naquadria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> According to established Stargate canon Xi Boötes, a star system not far from Earth is where they dialed Destiny from. 
> 
> Which makes it a perfect destination for this Earth's first interstellar ship as it tests it's hyperdrive.

SG1 walked out onto the surface of the planet. 

Nothing but yellow sand and a few broken blue crystals as far as the eye could see. 

"Okay, so, according to you this crystal pit is a mass grave of some sort. And in the other timeline there was a life form that copied that Air Force colonel. Why did you insist that we had to come here?" Asked Rostrum. 

"I'm not sure, just... Something... Keep your eyes out for an intact crystal, but if you see one for goodness sake, don't touch it!" 

An intact crystal was found. 

Oma spoke to it. But it didn't move, didn't react, didn't form a face. 

Small shards were collected and brought back to Earth for analysis. 

"This... Is going to be important." Oma thought as she absentmindedly examined the shard. 

"I can't believe you talked me into this." 

"What? You aren't enjoying the ride?" 

"Not particularly, no. This thing is even rougher than I thought it would be." 

The hull shivered. 

Doctor Entanill shuddered in fear. 

The Hornet was finished. 

It was every bit the crazed hybrid creation that everyone was expecting.

Crafted out of Trinium from Magnum and Naquada savaged... Salvaged from Morrigan's fleet. The USS Hornet was a rough little boat. With all the complications, cramped quarters and lack of space one would expect aboard a space going Los Angeles class submarine. 

Oma had told everyone in detail about what had happened on the first interstellar cruise of the Prometheus in the other timeline. The Prometheus had flown too close to some cosmic phenomena and burned out its hyperdrive. Then there had been the little dust up between an Aschen dreadnought and a conversation with a sentient gas cloud on the way back. Oma told that story personally to Jacob Carter. She believed it was one of Samantha's finest moments. 

The decision was made for the Hornet's first hyperdrive trip be short. Just a quick spin out to the Oort Cloud and back. 

That trip went well. So well that the decision was made to make a longer trip. To a star known as Xi Boötes. Not far from Earth. A mere 22 light years away. Far shorter than the first voyage of the Prometheus. 

But like the Prometheus the secret sauce that made the Hornet's hyperdrive work was Naquadria. Carefully made out of samples of naquada placed in a particle accelerator. But they were still working the bugs out. 

"Hey, it's fine. We aren't going to be here long. Remember, these guys spent years deployed on these things. We're only here for a few weeks." Oma reassured her. 

"These things... This is for all intents and purposes a submarine. A ship designed to travel in water, at most, at thirty knots. We are now traveling at faster than light speeds between stars through the vacuum of space. If one of those shivers gets too much then this whole thing pops out of existence in... What would probably be one of the most massive explosions I've ever heard of." 

"Wouldn't we just drop out of hyper speed?" Asked Oma. 

"Perhaps, if this was a Goa'uld vessel. Those ships have been around for millennia. They have the bugs worked out. This thing, I really don't like this boat. But..." 

"Capon made it an order, huh?" Oma asked. 

"It's been an... Educational experience. But I'd much rather be in a Ha'tak right now." 

"Calm down." 

"Okay, okay. So how have things been on your end?" 

"Good, very good. It's odd, and I can't say definitively. But I think I enjoy being a member of SG1 more than I even enjoyed being ascended." 

"Yeah, I think there's a good reason for that. I've been meaning to ask you. When you were ascended your key teaching was... "We are defined by the conflict between our conscious and subconscious minds and that the only way to win was to deny the subconscious battle." Was that something unique to your philosophy? Or did all the ascended Ancients believe in that?" 

Oma thought for a moment and replied, "well... As I said. I can't be sure. But... Yes, I think that was something you had to believe in, in order to ascend." 

"Ah, well, that explains so much." 

"What does it explain?" 

Doctor Entanill cleared her throat and said. "This ship is a creation of the subconscious. Four years ago it didn't exist. The very concept of this ship didn't exist in the mind of anyone on Earth thirty years ago. Every component, every spar, every piece of this tub had to be imagined by someone and then willed into being by the sheer force of brute currency and hard work. On Aemon we are more comfortable with the subconscious than the Earthlings ever were. You know how much I like to act like a cliche of a mad scientist? Have you wondered why that is?" 

"Yes of course. I've been wondering about that since the first time we made love. We just haven't had a good moment for me to ask." 

Johanna smiled and replied, "something my mother said to me. 'You're old enough for your wants not to hurt you.' I want to act like a cackling mad scientist. Both my conscious and subconscious minds enjoy that and everyone in my life seems to enjoy the products of this cackling." 

"So what are you saying?" 

"Honestly? In the absence of an actual ascended Ancient to talk to. I think that your people mutilated themselves when you ascended. If the Ancients were ever anything at all like human beings then when you ascended. You took one of the most important parts of yourselves and murdered it." 

"Murdered it?" 

"Murdered it. Perhaps that's the real reason why they were so utterly worthless against the Ori? Without a subconscious, or for that matter without the ability to affect the universe as we know it. Perhaps the ascended Ancients wanted to die?" 

Oma hung her head. She had never even considered looking at it that way and said. "Once this mission is over, I have some leave coming up. We need to spend some more time together." 

Johanna smiled, took Oma's hands and was about to say something when the PA system announced. 

"Attention all hands, attention all hands. Prepare for massive deceleration. We will be dropping into normal space within five minutes, repeat five minutes. All hands to battle stations, all hands to battle stations." 

Johanna said. "Come on, let's go to the bridge." 

The USS Hornet came out of hyper speed in a completely clear area of the space around Xi Boötes. 

"Begin system wide survey." Commanded Captain Flowers as the crew warily monitored their various scanning devices. Johanna announced. "Nine planets, three gas giants, six rocky, one with abundant water, oxygen... Oh my god..." 

"What?!" Asked the captain. 

"This whole system, but especially that planet, the fourth one. It's rich in naquada. Really rich... Like... This is a lot of naquada, it's a small planet but the mass of heavy elements means that it has similar gravity to Earth... um. It's going to take awhile to find out how much naquada actually. But captain, I advise that we enter orbit around the fourth planet from this systems sun."

The Hornet settled into orbit. Scans continued. Through optical telescopes they saw the surface. 

Down there was a planet half covered in fresh water, lush in algae and a few plants. There was no animal life whatsoever. 

Scans were done. 

The decision was made to land. 

Oma was the first off the ship, followed by Doctor Entanill. The planet was warm and inviting, although the smell of the algae was a little off putting. As they stood in the airlock they could feel something calling to them. 

They walked across the surface of the planet. They had landed not far from the largest body of water on the planet. The water itself seemed to be calling to them. 

They ran to the waters edge and stopped. 

Oma turned to Johanna and said, "let me go first."

"Okay." Johanna replied. 

Oma stepped onto the water. 

Or she tried to. 

The algae formed a solid bridge beneath her feet. Oma walked across it. Out some distance from the shore. 

Scans had shown a very deep trench in the area. Incredibly deep. 

Oma was still within sight of the shore as a voice said. 

"You're here." 

"Yes, so... Who are you?" 

"Curious." Replied the voice, as the algae bridge gave way beneath her feet. 

The next thing Oma remembered was walking back towards Doctor Entanill. Who had a look of curiosity on her face. 

"How... Why are you dressed like that?" She asked. 

"Dressed like... What the?" 

Oma Desala's US Navy issue tiger stripe fatigue uniform was gone. Replaced with a costume of... Well she didn't recognize what she was wearing. It showed a lot of skin though. A frilly top and a short skirt. Her hair was now long and dark green in color. As Oma looked over herself she thought, 'I could really use a mirror right now." A mirror sprang into existence in her right hand. 

Oma walked the rest of the way to the shore in utter befuddlement. 

"Joanna, make it quick." Said the voice. 

Joanna took the voices advice and ran across the algal bridge. In a flash of light her Aemonian Navy uniform was replaced with a similar costume. But the bow on Johanna's chest was yellow and her skirt was blue as opposed to Oma's dark green skirt. 

"How, huh... Who, wha..." Joanna asked as she walked back to shore with an indescribably ornate but effective looking sword materialized in her left hand. 

Oma and Johanna looked at each other. Then back at the ship. 

The voice spoke.

"Return to your ship until I summon you again. This is going to take a while." 

They did so. On the way back Oma asked. "So... Any idea why that... Thing dressed us both like Japanese schoolgirls?" 

"No clue." Replied Johanna as she stared at her new sword. 

A day and a night went by. 

The voice spoke to Oma again. 

"You may all come out now if you like." 

Dozens of the crew came out onto the surface of the planet. Oma and Johanna had stored their costumes for more practical clothes. The sword and the mirror were locked up in what passed for a laboratory aboard the Hornet. 

Oma, Johanna and the captain walked up to where the algae bridge had been. An illusion flickered into existence above the water. An illusion of a woman who was wearing yet another one of these sailor costumes. Except hers had a bright green skirt. This illusion had long brunette hair and intense green eyes. "Welcome to my world." Offered the hologram. 

"Who... What are you?" Asked Oma. 

"I am consciousness. To put it into terms you can understand I am a brain, pervading this entire planet. I've been alone here except for the occasional Goa'uld incursion which I have fought off. When I saw your ship arriving in this system it didn't look anything like any Goa'uld ship I have seen before. So I took the risk of letting your ship land. I'm glad you could all follow my instructions." 

"What do you want from us?" Asked Johanna. 

"What do I want? I want to learn more about you. Your cultures, your art, your technology, your food. Your minds are so much smaller than mine. But so much richer. Your lives, your experiences. I once was blind, but now I see." 

"Why did you dress us in those costumes?" Asked Johanna. 

"You both look good, I thought you would look better in those costumes. And I think I look pretty nifty in one of these costumes myself, don't you think?" 

Oma and Johanna looked somewhat embarrassed. Captain Flowers smiled. He did think the costumes looked pretty. Oma shook her head and said, "okay, so you want to trade, art, technology and food. What are you willing to offer us?" 

"Well, I could offer you my algae as a healthy, high protein foodstuff. But I can tell you would be much more interested in my elements. See those extensions over there?" 

"Yes." 

"Go ahead and take them if you want. The material inside those, the radiation means it's cut off from my consciousness. I know you want that stuff and in all honesty, I'm probably better off without it. Oh and while I was searching your memories I found a problem that I believe that I can solve. If you can provide me with a quality container capable of holding thirty liters of liquid." 

The Hornet returned to Earth laden with naquada, naquadria, neutronium and a thirty liter container of a very energetic liquid. 

Oma walked through the gate with the container of highly charged liquid that the as yet unnamed consciousness of Xi Bootes had given them to the world of the shattered crystals. 

She very slowly turned a tiny spigot which allowed a minuscule flow of liquid to drip from the drum onto some of the shattered crystals. A small, delicate crystal canal began to grow out of the shards. Leading the liquid towards the rest of the shards. 

Oma very carefully got up, backed away, dialed Earth and was about to get off the planet when a voice said. 

"Return in... Five of your days. One hundred and twenty hours." 

Oma hit the center button of the DHD. 

"But no less than that time." The voice added as she stepped through the gate. 

"Chevron seven... Is locked." 

A probe was sent through. 

The Stargate on the planet of the shattered crystal shards now appeared to be inside a giant crystalline building. There was a flashing sign on the other side with the message printed out on clear English. 'Come through and take this to the consciousness that restored us." 

As they finished reading the message a podium emerged from the crystalline floor with a model ship on it. 

Oma and Rostrum walked through. 

There was this indescribable music in the crystal chamber. Unbelievably beautiful, optimistic and hopeful. Like beings that had to spend their entire lives with shattered bones had been completely healed. 

Oma and Rostrum both wanted to stay. But the crystal terminal began reaching down incredibly thin tendrils to the DHD and began dialing Earth. 

Rostrum looked at the model boat. It was a perfect crystal replica of a famous racing yacht, Ranger, a 1934 vintage J boat.

Rostrum took it off the podium and hugged the model for a moment. Then placed it carefully in a padded transit chest. Another message flashed through the terminal. 

"Deliver to the consciousness responsible. As soon as possible! We understand our electromagnetic field and Earth's field don't get along." 

The gate opened. Rostrum and Oma took the model onboard a Tok'ra cargo ship. Where it was flown to Xi Boötes four. 

Oma and Rostrum carefully launched the model into the waters of the planet. Tiny crystal crew members came out on deck and worked sails, which caught a breeze and were soon sailing out into the deep waters of the planet. 

As the model ship disappeared from sight a hologram emerged. She was smiling. 

"You did it. You brought me exactly what I wanted. Did you bring... Anything else?" 

Rostrum smiled and pointed to a variety of boxes being unloaded from the cargo ship. "Art, technologies and food. The very best we were able to get on short notice. A small price to pay for a regular supply of naquadah. Let alone everything else you provide." 

She snapped into existence. No longer a hologram, but a reasonable facsimile of a human body, she announced. 

"I really want to try this thing you call salmon."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, yes. The consciousness of Xi Bootes did dress up as Sailor Jupiter and dressed up Oma Desala as Sailor Neptune and Doctor Entanill as Sailor Uranus.
> 
> In all honesty I'm not sure why. But it makes for a pretty image, doesn't it?


End file.
